What place the tornado, the hailstorm, the locust, and such like destroyers have in the mundane economy; whether they are providential dispositions for the punishment of particular communities, or freaks of sheer diabolism, or resultants of powers imparted to nature playing under determining conditions, is a question which must be left to casuists, reverend and other. Minnesota can claim no exemption from such visitations. On April 14, 1886, a furious tornado struck the city of St. Cloud and its suburb, Sauk Rapids, cutting a swath of desolation and destroying some seventy persons. In 1891, on June 15, a series of tornadoes traversed the counties of Martin, Faribault, Freeborn, Mower, and Fillmore, on a line nearly parallel with the Southern Minnesota division of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. Many farm buildings were wrecked and about fifty people killed. In previous years disastrous tornadoes had wrought havoc in New Ulm and Rochester.
In the fall of 1886 there was a descent of what were supposed to be ordinary grasshoppers in Otter Tail County. When in the following spring “hoppers” were appearing dangerously numerous, Governor McGill sent out the state entomologist, Dr. Otto Lugger of the university agricultural college, to investigate. He saw at once that the genuine Rocky Mountain locust was to be dealt with, and proceeded to organize the farmers for warfare on them. So effective was the campaign that thirty-five thousand bushels of the insects were caught and destroyed, and half the crops on about one hundred square miles saved.
On September 1, 1894, a fire broke out in the cut-over pine woods near Hinckley, in Pine County. A high wind prevailing, it spread and raged for many days. Eight villages, including Hinckley and Sandstone, and scores of farmsteads were completely destroyed. Not less than three hundred and fifty square miles were devastated. Four hundred and eighteen persons lost their lives, and more than two thousand were left homeless. The property loss was not less than a million dollars. Governor Nelson appointed a relief committee of citizens, with Charles A. Pillsbury at its head. The estimated amount of relief furnished through this and the local committees was $185,000. In the same year the chinch bug did much damage to growing crops in several southwestern counties.
At the outbreak of the war with Spain in April, 1898, Minnesota was first of the states to respond to the call of the President for volunteers, as she had been in the Civil War. Before the close of the month three regiments,—Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth,—mostly recruited from the national guard, were assembled at St. Paul. They were mustered into the United States service May 7 and 8. The Thirteenth Regiment, commanded by Colonel Charles McCormick Reeve, was dispatched to the Philippine Islands and participated in the capture of Manila, August 13, 1898. It performed provost guard duty in that city till the spring of 1899, and formed part of Lawton’s expedition to the interior. The regiment was mustered out in San Francisco in September, but was transported home in trains furnished by Minnesota cities, and on arrival in Minneapolis, October 12, 1899, was reviewed by President McKinley.
The Twelfth and Fourteenth regiments were sent to the grand rendezvous at Camp Thomas, Chickamauga Park, Georgia, detained thereabout through the summer, sent home late in September, furloughed for thirty days, and mustered out November 18.
The Fifteenth, recruited from the state at large, was mustered in July 18, detained at Fort Snelling till September 15, and then sent to Camp Meade, Pennsylvania. A month later it was ordered to Camp Mackenzie, Georgia, where it remained till mustered out March 27, 1899.
The Thirteenth alone suffered losses in action. Its roll of honor shows officers and men killed, 5; died of disease or accident, 37; wounded, 44.
A detachment of the Fourteenth Minnesota saw some service, happily bloodless, in its own state. The Pillager band of Chippeway Indians on Leech Lake had long been complaining of injustice done them in the matter of the pine on their reservation, which they had been persuaded to sell. The prices paid them were ridiculously low, and the charges for appraisal and inspection as ridiculously high. Parties holding permits to cut “dead and down timber,” cut live trees standing convenient. Repeated protests to the government had brought no redress. The deputy United States marshal, Sheehan (he of Fort Ridgely), undertook to arrest a chief who had given show of misbehavior. He resisted arrest, and a number of his braves rallied and stood off the marshal’s posse. A company of sixty United States infantry was sent from Fort Snelling, which was later reinforced by two hundred men commanded by Major M. C. Wilkinson and supervised by General Bacon. On October 5 the troops were landed on the peninsula known as Sugar Point, and a sharp little conflict followed which cost the lives of Major Wilkinson, Sergeant William Butler, and two privates. Two companies of the Fourteenth were recalled from furlough and distributed to stations of the railroad running north of Leech Lake. After repeated councils, at which the United States commissioner of Indian affairs was present, eight chiefs surrendered to the marshal, and the war ended. Governor Clough, in his message to the legislature of 1899, charged the United States government with a “series of acts and neglects most wrongful to the Indians” and with a “blunder more criminal in its results than those neglects and acts,” the performance being the “climax of a long course of folly and wrong.”
All branches of the public school system have been enlarged and improved. The common school endowment from the lands granted by Congress has increased to more than $11,000,000. Sales of pine timber ($3,500,000) and other items have swelled the fund to more than $20,000,000. The state still holds millions of acres unsold. The excellent work of the normal schools, supplemented by that of the high schools, has greatly added to the number of qualified teachers. Opposition to the normal schools, now five in number, has long since ceased.