THE 
NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE. 95 
islands in Lake Alexander afford an almost unlimited number of 
camping places and sites for summer cottages. 
The strong morainic topography continues for several miles be- 
yond Lincoln but gradually becomes more su 
gently rolling ground that is noticeable around Phil- 
brook soon gives place to a country that is flat and 
swampy as far as the eyecan see. Philb 
posed to stand on the dividing line between the red 
Philbrook. 
Elevation 1,269 feet. 
St. Paul 135 miles, 
dued, and even the 
rook is sup- 
drift of the middle ice sheet and the gray drift of the western sheet, 
but no distinction between the two drift sheets can be observed from 
the car window 
From Philbrook the land continues flat and swampy to Staples, 
which is a division point and one of the main junctions on the 
Staples. 
railway. Here the line from St. Paul joins the origi- 
nal main line of the Northern Pacific from Duluth. 
Elevation ye feet. 
Population 
St. Paul 141 ene 
country west of Staples is as flat as that to 
the south, over which the traveler has just passed, 
’ As early as 1853 the Government made 
a survey to determine the best location 
for a Pacific railroad, and one of the routes 
examined and recommended is practi- 
cally that which the Northern Pacific fol- 
lows, but after the survey was made the 
undertaking seemed so great that capital 
could not be found with which to make 
even a beginning. On the completion of 
the Union Paciiic Railroad in 1869 the 
faith of the public in the success of trans- 
continental roads seems to have revived, 
and in 1870 th truction of the North- 
ific line was actually begun. 
Work was started at the two extremities— 
near Duluth, which was to be the eastern 
terminus, and between Kalama, on Co- 
lumbia River, and Tacoma, the western 
terminus in Washington. In Minnesota 
the rails were laid in 1870 as far as Brain- 
erd, on ppi River, 30 miles east 
of Staples, and in De were extended 
entirely across the S 
At that time Si on account of its 
location on one of the Great Lakes, was 
considered the most desirable place to 
connect with the East. Duluth is a 
ail dernte. without railway communi- 
cation and at the head of a lake closed to 
navigation by ice for five months of the 
was 
in the 
future St. Paul, with its unlimited pos- 
sibilities ee y i 
Accordingly negotiations 
for a line to St. Paul were undertaken. 
Sometime between 1864 and 1870 a rail- 
road was built from St. Paul up Missis- 
sippi River to Sauk Rapids by an inde- 
pendent company. is line was pur- 
chased by the Northern Pacific Co. in 
1870 with the understanding that the road 
was to be completed to Brainerd, where it 
would connect with the main line of that 
system. In the panic of 1873 the North- 
ern Pacific could not fulfill its obligations 
and so lost control of this line. 
was completed to Brainerd on November 
1, 1877, by other persons, and it afforded 
ns fast railroad connection between the 
purchase of its capital stock. Still oo 
the company built the road from Little 
Falls to Staples, giving it the through 
connection desired. 
