LAKE ITASCA.
The Mississippi appropriately takes its name at the outlet of Lake Itasca, its reputed source. This lake, although known to the fur company adventurers of the eighteenth, and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, received the name Itasca in 1832 from Schoolcraft and Boutwell. A complete account of the naming of the lake will be found in the biography of Rev. W. T. Boutwell, attached to the history of Pine county in this work. Itasca lies in range 36, townships 133 and 134, and is about three miles in length by one and one-half in width. Its title to the distinction of being the true source of the Mississippi has been frequently called in question. There are tributary lakes of smaller size lying near it, connected with it by small streams, barely navigable for birch canoes. Elk lake, a body of water three-fourths of a mile in length, lying south, is connected with it by a stream 25 links wide and 30 rods in length. Elk lake has an influent stream 2 miles in length, which drains a swamp lying south.
Another stream from the south, two miles in length, flows into Itasca, and has its source in a lake one-fourth of a mile long. As this lake has not been named in any original or later township map, United States Surveyor Chandler, Chief Clerk B. C. Baldwin and the writer, in January, 1887, agreed to give it the name of Boutwell, in honor of the devoted missionary who visited Itasca in company with Schoolcraft in 1832. This lake is really the source of the Mississippi, though from its small size is not likely to receive general recognition as such. Lakes Itasca, Elk and Boutwell lie in range 36, township 143, west of the 5th principal meridian, United States survey, latitude 47.10, and longitude 95.30 west from Greenwich United States survey. The lands bordering on and adjacent to these lakes were surveyed in October, 1875, by Edwin Hall, and lie in Beltrami county, which was named after an Italian traveler who visited this section in 1823.
Hon. B. C. Baldwin, a member of the Minnesota constitutional convention of 1857, told the writer that when surveying government lands in 1874, he discovered in range 37, township 143, six miles west of Itasca, a lake two and a half miles in length, without inlet or outlet, the waters apparently rising, as trees were standing in the water near the shore and submerged at least eight feet. Small lakes of similar character were also discovered. Twelve miles west of Itasca the tributaries of the Red River of the North have their source.
The latest claim made as to the discovery of the source of the Missispippi is that of Capt. Willard Glazier, who, in 1881, claimed to have discovered Elk lake as the source of the Mississippi. The Minnesota State Historical Society promptly repudiated his assumptions, and protested against affixing to Elk lake the name Glazier, as the captain was in no sense a discoverer, either of the lake or its connections with Itasca, the adjacent lands having been surveyed in 1875, and partially covered with claims in 1881. With far more justice we might claim for Lake Boutwell, a more remote lake, the distinguished honor of being the true source of the Mississippi.
COPPER MINING ON THE ST. CROIX.
As early as 1842, a company, composed of the Harris brothers and others, of Galena, Illinois, prospected in the Upper St. Croix valley for copper. Their superintendent, Mr. Crosby, located a mineral permit at Pine island, one mile above St. Croix Falls, where he found rich specimens. Citizens and operatives at St. Croix Mills gave liberally to aid the enterprise, but Mr. Crosby's health having failed he left expecting to spend the winter in Cuba, but sickened and died at New Orleans, and the mining enterprise of the Galena company was never resumed.
In 1847, a Boston company, composed of Caleb Cushing, Robert Rantoul, Dexter and Harrington, and others, of Boston, and some other capitalists, located a mineral permit one mile square at St. Croix Falls, and another of the same dimensions on the St. Croix and Kettle River rapids. This proved to be a speculative scheme of Boston and Washington capitalists and politicians.
In 1848, David Dale Owen, a prominent geologist, made an exploration of the territory now included in Minnesota and Wisconsin and published a report. His work being done at the order of the government, he was accompanied by a corps of scientific men, and had time and means to make thorough investigations. He reported that the trap rock ranges of the St. Croix, a continuation of the copper ranges of Superior, are rich in specimens of copper. These ranges crop out every few miles in a southwesterly direction from Superior. The most southerly are those known as the Dalles of the St. Croix, including as a part the Franconia ledge three miles below. The Kanabec river range crops out near Chengwatana. The Kettle river range crosses the St. Croix further north.
In 1865 the Minnesota legislature placed the sum of $1,000 in the hands of N. C. D. Taylor for the purpose of examining and reporting the different mineral prospects on the St. Croix and its tributaries. He reported the Kettle river veins as being very promising. Mr. Taylor sunk a shaft in a locality in Taylor's Falls to a depth of forty feet and found excellent indications of copper, and some good specimens. He reports most of the rock in the St. Croix valley above Taylor's Falls to be of the different kinds of trap rock, with belts of conglomerate running through them in a direction from northeast to southwest, the conglomerate being most abundant on the Kettle river. There are limited patches of sandstone which in places contain marine shells, but no rock in place. Prof. Hall says of the Taylor's Falls vein that it is a very distinct vein and shows quite equal to the early showing of many of the best paying mines of Superior. He regards the Kettle river vein as one of the most promising yet found in the country.