in the original park limits would be 16,800 acres. 

 Four hundred acres were added a few years after the 

 park was created. 



By act of August 2, 1892, Congress granted to 

 Minnesota for Itasca State Park the undisposed of 

 lands of the United States in thirty-five sections in 

 the limits of the park. In the list were two school 

 sections which, according to the act of Congress or- 

 ganizing Minnesota as a territory, had already been 

 granted to Minnesota for school purposes and could 

 not therefore be accepted for park purposes. Leaving 

 those out, the total amount of land granted by Con- 

 gress for the Park was 6,533.54 acres. May 11, 1893, 

 the State purchased from the Northern Pacific Rail- 

 road Company in the limits of the park 2,252.96 

 acres at fifty cents per acre, in all $1,126.48. Thus 

 in 1893 our State had acquired the large area of 

 8,786.50 acres, almost as a gift. Certainly this was 

 a fine beginning in the establishment of a splendid 

 park. What next ought the State to have done? To 

 have the headwaters of the Mississippi river in pic- 

 turesque, salubrious and attractive locality that tour- 

 ists would wish to visit was one of nature's gifts 

 that no other state possessed. Especially a state that 

 possessed such a munificent permanent school fund as 

 a gift from the United States as Minnesota enjoys, 

 ought immediately to have employed the best engineer- 

 ing and landscape talent to lay out and plan the park 

 and arrange for the erection of tasteful and sufficient 

 buildings, so that the Park 'Would reflect honor upon 

 our State. The greater part and best of the primeval 

 pine forest in the park limits had already been ac- 



29 



