MINNESOTA 



3835 



MINNESOTA 



Growth as a State. Entirely apart from the 

 region where slavery was a vital question, Min- 

 nesota was loyal to the Union during the War 

 of Secession, furnishing about 25,000 men. But 

 during that period it had a very serious prob- 

 lem of its own to solve, for while many of the 

 strong young men were absent in the Federal 

 armies, the Sioux Indians went on the warpath, 

 attacking the frontier towns, killing over 600 

 white people and destroying nearly a million 

 dollars' worth of property. Several hundred of 

 the Indians were captured and brought to trial, 

 and a number of them were hanged. 



But all these Indian depredations could not 

 intimidate the adventurous pioneers who had 

 made up their minds to find homesteads in the 

 fertile Minnesota region, and the new state grew 

 rapidly. Railroads developed, towns sprang up, 

 and emigrants flocked to this "far western coun- 

 try" from Europe, from those northern coun- 

 tries whose people make thrifty, citizens. Oc- 

 casional financial crises and disastrous forest 

 fires, which destroyed villages and property and 

 left hundreds of people homeless, were almost 

 the only drawbacks to progress, and they 

 proved but temporary. The discovery of iron 

 ore about 1878 meant increased prosperity, but 

 it was not until 1892 that the output from the 

 wonderful Mesaba mines became so remark- 

 able. 



From the first years of its statehood until 

 1898 Minnesota was consistently Republican in 

 politics, but since that date the Democrats have 

 more than once been successful in electing their 

 candidates. One Democratic governor, John A. 

 Johnson, who first took office in 1905 and was 

 twice reflected, was especially popular, and 

 gained a prominence in national affairs which 

 brought him before the people as a possible 

 candidate for the Presidential nomination of 

 1908. His death the following year ended an 

 unusually promising career. In the election of 

 1912 Minnesota supported the national Progres- 

 sive party headed by Theodore Roosevelt; in 

 1916 its Presidential vote was cast for Charles 

 E. Hughes, Republican, by a plurality of 392 

 votes. A.O.E. 



Consult Neill's History of Minnesota; Folwill's 

 Minnesota, in American Commonwealths Series ; 

 Skinner's Story of Minnesota. 



Related Subjects. The following articles in 

 these volumes will be found to contain informa- 

 tion that will be of interest in connection with a 

 study of Minnesota : 



CITIES 



Duluth Hibbing 



Faribault Mankato 



Minneapolis 

 Red Wing 

 Rochester 

 Saint Cloud 



Saint Paul 

 Stillwater 

 Virginia 

 Winona 



HISTORY 



Hennepin, Louis Ojibwa 



Hiawatha Sioux 



Louisiana Purchase 



LEADING PRODUCTS AND INDUSTRIES 



Barley Lumber 



Dairying Steel 



Flour Wheat 

 Iron 



RIVERS AND LAKES 



Lake of the Woods Rainy Lake 



Minnesota River Red River of the North 



Mississippi River Superior, Lake 



MINNESOTA, UNIVERSITY OF, a coeduca- 

 tional institution which, in point of .student 

 enrolment, enjoyed, in 1916, the honor of be- 

 ing the largest state university in America. It 

 was established by the territorial legislature of 

 Minnesota in 1851, and was opened for instruc- 

 tion in 1869, at Minneapolis. The university 

 maintains a graduate school; the college of 

 science, literature and the arts ; a college of en- 

 gineering and architecture; the department of 

 agriculture, including agriculture, forestry and 

 home economics; schools of law and medicine, 

 including a school for nurse's ; schools of mining 

 and analytical and applied chemistry; the col- 

 leges of dentistry, pharmacy and education, and 

 the extension department. Through the latter 

 the people of the state may enjoy the advan- 

 tages of correspondence courses, evening classes, 

 lecture courses, field debates on public questions 

 and a municipal reference bureau. 



In 1884, when Dr. Cyrus Northrop became 

 president of the university, it boasted one build- 

 ing and a student body of about 400. At the 

 present time it is housed in over sixty build- 

 ings, which are located partly on the main cam- 

 pus, a stretch of land on the Mississippi River, 

 comprising 109 acres and beautified by trees, 

 lawns and walks; and partly on the university 

 farm of 420 acres. On this farm are the build- 

 ings of the agricultural department and the 

 main experiment station. The student enrol- 

 ment is nearly 11,000, the faculty numbers about 

 650, and the university property is valued at 

 over $12,000,000. There is a general library con- 

 taining about 185,000 volumes and several spe- 

 cial libraries. 



In 1915 the university board of regents ac- 

 cepted from the eminent surgeons of Rochester, 

 Minn., William J. and Charles H. Mayo, the fa- 

 cilities afforded by the Mayo Foundation, with 

 the hospitals and laboratories under its control 



