Fifty Years In The Northwest / With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

by William H. C. Folsom

"To Minnesotians I would say, let Wisconsin have much of our aid. I trust it will not take thirty-five years of the future to open up what thirty-five years of the past has projected. Wisconsin alone and unassisted ought to have accomplished this great work years ago, if the work could have been accomplished as cheaply as it has been represented.

"Let Minnesota look nearer home. The headwaters of the St. Croix are nearer to Lake Superior than those of any other navigable stream. Large Mississippi boats, whenever occasion has demanded, have made their way to the Dalles of the St. Croix. The falls and rapids above this point for a distance of four miles have a fall of but seventy-four feet, an elevation that could be overcome by means of locks. By means of wing dams at Kettle River falls, and other improvements at no very great cost, the river could be made navigable to the mouth of the Namakagon. This river, though put down as a tributary, is in reality the main stream, and can be navigated to Namakagon lake, which is but thirty miles from Ashland, and can be connected by a canal with Chequamegon bay, or with White river, a distance of only a few miles.

"If we pass up the St. Croix from the mouth of the Namakagon river, we shall find no serious obstructions to navigation till we reach the great dam built by the lumbermen twenty miles below Upper Lake St. Croix. The conformation here is of such a character that an inexhaustible supply of water can be held—more than three times what is held in the celebrated Summit lake in Ohio, which feeds the canal connecting the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie. It is but a mile from the former lake to the source of Brule river, an affluent of Lake Superior, but as the waters of the Brule are rapid and the channel rocky, and its outlet is on a bleak and unhospitable stretch of lake shore, destitute of any harbor, we prefer the route from the Upper St. Croix lake to the bay of Superior, a distance of about thirty miles, a route well supplied by reservoirs of water, and with no difficult or insurmountable hills to overcome.

"Hon. H. M. Rice, who was one of the commissioners to survey the St. Marie's canal, pronounces this the most feasible and direct route for our contemplated canal.

"Other routes have been proposed, as from the St. Croix to the Nemadji and St. Louis rivers, but of the feasibility of these I am not so definitely informed.

"Believing, gentlemen of the senate, that you are in full accord with me that this great Northwest demands not only state aid in developing our natural resources, but the assistance of the general government, I recommend the proper presentation of this subject before Congress by our senators and representatives until our prayers are granted for the improvement of the same."

In the session of the Minnesota legislature of 1876 I again introduced a memorial to Congress asking for an appropriation of $10,000 to make a government survey of the St. Croix and Lake Superior routes.

George R. Stuntz, the veteran explorer, surveyor and civil engineer, who accompanied the United States reservoir commission to the Upper St. Croix waters, and who had made previous scientific examinations for the purpose of forming a correct idea of the contour of the summit dividing the waters flowing north and south, and of the practicability of constructing reservoirs, and of the cost of connecting the Lake Superior and St. Croix waters, makes the following report, which is valuable for the reliable data given:

"There are evidences that in the glacial period this was the channel through which flowed a river of ice, and that subsequently for a long period a vast volume of water coursed through this channel from Lake Superior to and down the Mississippi. The valley is everywhere of great width in proportion to the present volume of water, showing evidences of currents of great velocity fifty feet above the high water marks of the present time. These ancient banks of the river are composed of heavy drift gravel and boulders bearing the marks of the glacial action and having their origin north of Lake Superior. This valley extends across the height of land in township 45, in range 11 west, and in the northern part of it the Brule river rises and flows north into Lake Superior.

"At the copper range in township 48, range 10 west, section 23, a ledge of trap rock stands in the valley. In the eddy of this rock and extending to the southward or up the present stream is a well defined moraine of large boulders and gravel showing that the glacial river ran south. To the north of this point the Brule river makes a straight cut to the lake through sandy red clay deposits peculiar to that region.