8 
THROUGH WONDERLAND. 
considerably exceeds that of either San Francisco, New Orleans, Cincinnati 
or St. Louis, it is through no fault of the cities themselves. But the visitor 
may bring with him a just appreciation of their size and commercial importance, 
and yet have had no conception of their beauty, nor of the abounding evidences 
of public spirit and private enterprise that will confront him at every turn. 
The position of St. Paul, at the head of navigation, and as the focus of the 
railway activity of the Northwest, commands for it an extensive wholesale trade, 
its sales aggregating, in 1885, the large sum of $81,420,000. The surprise with 
which the visitor views the stately piles that are the outward and visible signs 
of the vast commercial and financial interests of the city, the creation of a few 
brief seasons, is no greater than the astonishment with which he realizes the 
absence of all appearance of immaturity. In no city in the Union are the busi¬ 
ness quarters more solid and substantial ; in none is the domestic architecture 
more attractive. Nothing is crude, nothing tentative, nothing transitional. 
Clustered around the great Falls of St. Anthony, stand those colossal flour¬ 
ing mills that have been more than ever the pride and glory of Minneapolis, 
since they enabled her to pluck from Chicago’s crown one of the brightest of 
its jewels. It is a startling commentary upon the much vaunted supremacy of 
the great metropolis of the West, that, while the wheat attracted to its market 
fell gradually from 34,106,109 bushels in 1879, to 13,265,223 bushels in 1885, 
the amount handled by the millers of Minneapolis increased, within the same 
period, from 7,514,364 bushels to 32,112,840 bushels. The mills have a total 
flour-manufacturing capacity of 33,973 barrels per day, an amount equal to the 
necessities of the three most populous States of the Union, or of one-half the 
population of Great Britain. 
But to turn from the romance of figures to that of song and story. 
Should the traveler have any desire to visit the far-famed falls of Minnehaha, 
it is now he should gratify it. Situated almost midway between the two cities, 
they can be easily reached, either by train, carriage or river steamboat. The 
poetic interest with which they have been invested by their association with 
the legend of Hiawatha constitutes but the least of their claims upon the 
traveler’s notice ; and, should he turn aside to visit them, not even the sub¬ 
lime scenery of Wonderland will entirely efface the memory of their laughing 
waters. 
The residents of St. Paul and Minneapolis are fortunate in having, within 
easy access, two of the most beautiful of Minnesota’s ten thousand lakes, 
White Bear and Minnetonka. Justly celebrated for the beauty of their scenery 
and the excellence of their hotel and other accommodations, they are resorted 
to annually by thousands of visitors from far and near. Minnetonka is not 
inappropriately called the Saratoga of the Northwest; but no designation, how¬ 
ever high-sounding or significant, can do justice to the exquisite beauty of its 
scenery or the sumptuousness of its hotels. 
It is time, however, that we were directing our steps toward that scarcely 
less luxurious hotel which is waiting to convey us to the fir-clad slopes of 
