By CHARLES B. ELLIOTT

"We are citizens of two fair cities," said a Genoese gentleman to a Florentine artist, "and if I were not a Genoese I should wish to be a Florentine." "And I," replied the artist, "if I were not Florentine—" "You would wish to be a Genoese," said the other. "No," replied the artist, "I should wish to be Florentine."

WITHIN a circle with a radius of ten miles, enclosing the Falls of St. Anthony, are two modern cities with a population of almost four hundred thousand. The pioneer settler died a few months ago and the first child born there is now but passing middle life. And yet a little more than half a century after the landing of the Pilgrims the cross of Christ and the arms of France were carved on an oak tree which stood on the site of the present city of Minneapolis.

In the summer of 1680 Louis Hennepin, a Recollet monk, in company with Michael Accault and a Picard named Du Gay first explored the Upper Mississippi. Hennepin wrote a famous description of his travels, and gave the name to the falls he had discovered. But La Salle, Hennepin's fellow-voyager across the Atlantic, was the first to write a description of the Falls of St. Anthony, from information which must have been furnished by one of Hennepin's party.

For almost a century after Hennepin no white man visited the Falls of St. Anthony. In 1776, Captain Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut, started on an exploring expedition, to the Northwest and reached the falls about the middle of November. Carver made the first picture of the falls and gives an accurate description, from which it appears that the island which is now many feet below the waterfall was then in its midst. Carver greatly appreciated the beauty of the country, but, like Hennepin, passed away leaving only his description and his picture. The War of the Revolution came and left no trace on the Northwest. At its close the sovereignty of France and of the new nation which had been born into the world faced each other on the banks of the Mississippi. In 1803 the west as well as the east bank became part of the domain of the United States. But the inhabitants knew nothing of the change until Captain Zebulon M. Pike, of the army, came to put an end to alleged improper transactions on the part of certain British traders. On an island a few miles below the falls Pike held a council with the Sioux and signed a treaty which extinguished the Indian title to a tract of land extending nine miles on each side of the river north from the mouth of the Minnesota River, and including the Falls of St. Anthony. Twelve years later Major Long, with two grandsons of Carver, ascended the river from St. Louis in a six-oared skiff, and wrote that "the murmuring of the cascade, the roaring of the river and the thunder of the cataract all contribute to render the scene the most interesting and magnificent of any I ever before witnessed."

About 1811 the philanthropic Earl of Selkirk attempted to establish a colony in the Red River Valley. Six years later it was threatened by starvation. The noble Earl then visited the country, and his presence caused so much disquietude in the breasts of the Indian agents that, fearing improper foreign influence over the Indians, they induced the Government to establish a military post in the country. In August, 1819, Colonel Leavenworth, with ninety-eight soldiers of the Fifth Infantry, pitched their tents near the mouth of the Minnesota River, about eight miles below the falls. A year later, Colonel Snelling, who had succeeded to the command, built the fort on the bluff where it now stands, and gave it the name of Fort St. Anthony. In 1824 General Scott suggested to the War Department the propriety of changing the name of the fort to that of one whose services to the country had been more conspicuous than those of Father Hennepin's patron saint.

In 1821 the soldiers built a mill on the west side of the river, near where now stands one of the greatest flouring mills in the world. The fort was, of course, the centre of what life there was in the country, and its people occasionally came into contact with the great world beyond. In 1826 the Indian agent, Major Taliafero, officiated at the marriage of the slave, Dred Scott, who was destined to play a part in history doubtless out of all proportion to his expectations. Colonel Snelling's son Joseph was something of a littÉrateur, and, after fighting a duel with a young officer, he became involved in a more savage, although less bloody, contest with N.P. Willis.

The land about the falls was a military reservation and therefore not open to settlement. As early as 1837 a Swiss watchmaker by the name of Perry attempted to settle there, but was driven off by the soldiers. Going a few miles down the river, he became in 1838, the first settler upon the present site of the city of St. Paul. His only competitor for this honor is a certain one-eyed personage of evil disposition and unattractive appearance whose true name was Parrant, but who became known to fame as Pig's Eye. With an eye to the advantages of the liquor business, Parrant located his claim beyond the limits of the reservation and near the river, where it became a flourishing resort for soldiers, Indians, and other frontier characters. It was the head of navigation on the river and entered into competition with the neighboring village of Stillwater for the proud position of the metropolis of the Territory. A town near by was surveyed in 1847 and during the following two years, as we are credibly informed by a local historian, "maturative and creative influence, slowly but surely tended towards civilization." From the same source we learn that in 1848 "the nuclei of civilization" consisted of a church, a school, and a hotel,—surely not a bad beginning. The history of the modern city properly begins in 1848, when Minnesota was organized as a territory with St. Paul as the provisional capital. The territorial government was organized with Alexander Ramsey (afterwards Governor of the State, Senator, and Secretary of War) as Governor, and duly proclaimed on June 1, 1848. The enabling act named St. Paul as the temporary capital, but left the people free to choose at the first general election a permanent place of government.

In the meantime, a rival town had grown up at the east end of the Falls of St. Anthony, and the long struggle for supremacy began with the selection of a permanent capital. The Indian title to the lands was extinguished in 1838, but two years earlier the commandant at the fort, Major Plympton, availed himself of his superior facilities and staked out a claim and built a cabin near the east end of the falls. Other claims were located soon after, all of which ultimately became the property of Franklin Steele and Pierre Bottineau, names famous in the early history of the locality. Early in 1847 there were about fifty people in the village, but in that year the van of "that great army which is moving yet but never stopping" began to arrive.

In 1848 three hundred people were on the ground, and the two towns of St. Anthony City and St. Anthony were duly surveyed and launched upon the market. In the same year it is interesting to find the names of Robert Rantoul and Caleb Cushing, famous statesmen of the day, among the purchasers of a nine-tenths interest in the east-side water power. During this year both the villages of St. Anthony and St. Paul were thriving under the impulse given by the organization of a regular government. St. Anthony now obtained a post-office, established a library association with two hundred books on its shelves, and indulged in a lecture course by local talent. St. Paul became the capital, but the controversy was not finally settled until 1872, when a compromise was effected by the permanent location of the State University at Minneapolis. The growth of the two villages during the next decade was very rapid. In 1855 Laurence Oliphant, diplomat and traveller, came down the river in a canoe and wrote interesting descriptions of St. Anthony and St. Paul and uncomplimentary notices of the people to Blackwood's Magazine. He was charmed with the falls and the "comfortable, civilized aspect of the town," which was then becoming known as a "watering place." Hotel manners in the capital city were not satisfactory, but the opinions of England and the Crimean War expressed by prominent citizens in the free and easy vernacular of the frontier made good reading.

In the meantime another village had grown up on the west side of the falls. In 1849 the old government mill, the little house a few yards back and two cabins built by missionaries on the banks of Lake Calhoun were the only buildings on the west side of the river. In that year Robert Smith, a member of Congress from Illinois, through some means best known to himself, obtained from the War Department the privilege of purchasing the mill and the house and of making a claim to 160 acres of land. This tract was carefully selected for the purpose of including the valuable waterpower rights on the west side. In the same year John H. Stevens, then postmaster at the fort, also obtained a permit and entered a claim to the land now covered by the heart of the city. While Smith and Stevens were favored others were driven from the reservation by the soldiers. Stevens built the first frame house in Minneapolis, and it now stands in one of the beautiful parks of the city as an evidence of the antiquity of things. Legal titles could not be obtained on the west side until 1855, although by that time more than two hundred houses had been built. In the following year the city was incorporated, but in 1862 this form of government was abandoned, and the people lived under a simple township organization until 1867. Five years later, in 1872, the two cities of St. Anthony and Minneapolis were consolidated under the name of the City of Minneapolis, which then entered upon a period of phenomenal growth.

We now find two cities in the stress of a rivalry which continued for many years. The west line of St. Paul soon became the east line of Minneapolis. The existence of two cities so near together was, as we have seen, due not to deliberate choice but to circumstances. In early days the fall, with its abundant waterpower and attractive scenery, was the point about which the minds of people revolved; it was, however, on the military reservation acquired by Pike, and settlers were driven to find a foothold farther down the river but within reach of the fort. There were some difficulties in the way of navigation to the falls, but these would soon have been removed. St. Paul was the capital of the State, and thus became the political and professional centre. In the contest for political honors this supremacy is still maintained. Its leaders control the politics of the State. Governors and senators are created in St. Paul and not in Minneapolis. The business enterprise of St. Paul found vent in building up great wholesale houses and in the development of railway and general transportation enterprises. Minneapolis, by reason of its location, became a great manufacturing centre. The vast pine forests of the north sent millions of logs to its mills. Around the falls were built the greatest flouring mills in the world, and its location upon the eastern edge of the great prairies of Minnesota and Dakota soon made it the primary wheat market of the world. The commercial and business interests of the two cities thus for a number of years developed along different and clearly defined lines. The increase of population is shown by the following table:

The falls was the point at which the early thought and life of Minneapolis centred, and the foundation of its early business prosperity. Paul Bourget, in his Outre Mer, speaking of the reasons for the location of American cities, says, "If any feature such as a waterfall permitted factories, industries were established. Minneapolis had no other origin. The falls of the Mississippi lent themselves to a series of incomparable mills and this was the starting-point of one of the future capitals of the world." When the Government established a fort it took the name of the falls, and the first town-sites were only distinguishable from each other by the difference between St. Anthony and St. Anthony City.

When it was rumored that the waterpower was about to be destroyed, consternation rested upon the little community. In 1868 the historian Parkman had written:

"Great changes, however, have taken place here and are still in progress. The rock is a very soft and friable sandstone, overlaid by a stratum of limestone; and it is crumbling with such rapidity under the action of the water that the cataract will soon be little more than a rapid.[13] Other changes equally disastrous in the artistic point of view are going on even more quickly. Beside the falls stands a city which by an ingenious combination of Greek and Sioux languages received the name of Minneapolis, the City of the Water, and which in 1867 contained ten thousand inhabitants, two national banks, and an opera house, while its rival city of St. Anthony, immediately opposite, boasts a gigantic water cure and the State University. In short, the great natural beauty of the place is utterly spoiled."

Minneapolis is essentially a manufacturing city. For many years the principal industry was the manufacture of lumber, which in its various forms has now reached great magnitude. The annual output for the five years prior to 1850 was 1,500,000 feet a year. In 1870 it reached 118,500,000 feet a year; in 1880 it was 195,500,000; in 1890, 300,000,000; in 1900 more than 500,000,000, and in addition 57,000,000 shingles and 94,000,000 laths. An army of men is engaged in the work of cutting the logs on the timber lands of the north. These are driven or floated down the river to the booms near the mills which line the river in the northern part of the city.

The prominence of the city in flour-milling is due to its location and to the skill and ingenuity of the men who have been engaged in the business. Minneapolis has passed through three well-defined milling periods. Prior to 1870 the ancient process of grinding wheat between the upper and nether millstones was in use, which turned into middlings much of the precious gluten. In 1872 an emigrant French miller named Legroux devised an apparatus for purifying middlings, and as a result the product became famous as "Minnesota Patent Flour," and brought pre-eminence and wealth to the Minnesota millers. A practical monopoly existed until the Eastern millers discovered that the process could be as well applied to the winter wheat of Minnesota as to the spring. Then began a new struggle for pre-eminence. After searching through the world, the Minneapolis millers discovered in Hungary a process of milling hard wheat which finally disposed of the ancient millstone and carried the wheat between rolls of smooth and corrugated surface until, by a process of gradual reduction, the desired fineness was secured. Foremost in the work of developing this great industry was the late Charles A. Pillsbury, to whose enterprise the city is greatly indebted.

At the present time the Minneapolis mills can produce 76,366 barrels of flour a day, which is the largest daily capacity of any group of mills in the world. The flour export for 1900 was 4,702,485 barrels. Thus the mills of Minneapolis, if grinding steadily, could give a loaf of bread every day to every man, woman, and child in the States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The conditions in a new and rapidly growing city cannot be properly understood without careful consideration of such material facts as we have been considering. But there is yet another story to tell. It is doubtful whether any cities in the United States of the size contain so many beautiful pictures and fine libraries. The Minneapolis Public Library is well known to all interested in library management by reason of the liberality and novelty of its methods. In the spring of 1859 Bayard Taylor delivered a lecture in the village and gave the proceeds, less than one hundred dollars, to a library association, which took the name of the Minneapolis Atheneum. Later Dr. Kirby Spencer devised to it a fund which now yields about $8000 each year, for the purchase of books of a certain designated class and character. The Atheneum was not a public library, but it was liberally managed by the trustees and the community was enabled to use it under reasonable restrictions. The trustees finally took the lead in the establishment of a public library into which the collection of the Atheneum was merged. The law created a library board with limited powers of taxation. Public-spirited citizens contributed a valuable site on which there was erected a building not surpassed by any structure of its kind in the country for convenience and general efficiency. In addition to the central building, there are two branch buildings, one erected by the city and the other presented to the city by ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury, who had already made his name synonymous with public generosity by his liberal gifts to the State University. The first librarian was Herbert Putnam, afterwards of the Boston Public Library, and now the Librarian of the Congressional Library at Washington. His successor, an eminent scholar, Dr. James K. Hosmer, has continued building upon the foundation laid by Mr. Putnam. The system gives to the public a much greater liberty of access to the books than had been considered safe and desirable in other large libraries. The plan has been successful and there have been no losses or injuries to the books which would justify the withdrawal or restriction of such freedom. The library now contains 113,000 books, and during the past year the circulation was over 600,000, which was an average of three books for each inhabitant of the city.

The picture gallery and school of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts occupies the third floor of the Library Building. The city owns a number of good paintings, which it purchased at the sale of the gallery that formerly belonged to the Exposition Company. Several fine paintings have been presented to the municipality by Mr. J.J. Hill of St. Paul, whose wealth has also been used to advance and cultivate the taste for artistic work in the city of St. Paul. When the collection of casts selected by General Cesnola for the Metropolitan Museum of Art arrived in New York before the building was ready, it was promptly purchased by citizens of Minneapolis, and donated to the Exposition Company, which was then holding annual exhibits. It is now the property of Mr. T.B. Janney, by whom it has been placed in the Public Library, and thus for all practical purposes dedicated to the art education of the people. Mr. Hill in St. Paul and Mr. T.B. Walker in Minneapolis have private collections which include many famous and valuable pictures.

A start has been made in the work of beautifying the city and honoring illustrious citizens by the placing of Fjelde's statue of Ole Bull in Loring Park and Daniel C. French's statue of ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury in the grounds of the State University. A law has recently been passed which provides for the creation of permanent art commissions in St. Paul and Minneapolis. It is hoped that these bodies will prevent the purchase or acceptance of unworthy pictures or statues by the municipalities.

In proportion to the population the parks in Minneapolis exceed in acreage those of any other city in America and of all but three foreign cities. There are twenty-two parks and parkways, not counting numerous parklets formed by the intersection of streets. At the present time the park board controls 1552.81 acres. In the centre of the city lies Loring Park, with its beautiful lake and well-kept verdure. Starting from this point, Kenwood Boulevard carries us along a wooded bluffy region from whose heights are obtained changing views of the Lake of the Isles, which is now entirely enclosed by a boulevard. A short half-mile south is Lake Calhoun, along the eastern terrace of which we pass to the borders of Lakewood Cemetery and thence through Interlaken, rich in the beauty of its wild woods, to the shores of Lake Harriet and its pavilion. At the south angle of the lake the boulevard leads off to Minnehaha Creek, which is the outlet of Lake Minnetonka and flows easterly through a romantic valley until, falling over the Trenton limestone within a half-mile of the Mississippi, it forms the romantic Falls of Minnehaha. Around the Falls of Minnehaha there is a park of one hundred and twenty-five acres, containing a zoological garden and bordered by the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, which for all Æsthetic purposes is a part of it.

Another matter of striking interest is the bicycle-path system, which crosses the city in every direction and extends for miles into the country. The paths are constructed and sustained by a license tax of fifty cents on each wheel which uses them. During the past year this tax produced more than $20,000, all of which was expended in the construction and maintenance of the paths.

The State University is the crowning feature of the non-commercial institutions of the city and State. The first class was graduated in 1873, and ten years thereafter the graduating class numbered thirty-five. Its great weakness, as of all Western institutions, was the lack of proper preparatory schools, and President Folwell devised a unique plan by which the State high schools became feeders for the University. There are now about 3500 students in the University, making it the second or third largest in size in the United States. Upon the foundation broadly laid by the first president of the institution, President Northrup has since 1884 builded until the institution now has a magnificent income and an equipment second to few in the country.

Another notable feature in connection with the local government in Minneapolis is her method in dealing with the liquor question. After a period of controversy an ordinance was passed under which a line was drawn around the downtown district. Within this patrol limit saloons can exist upon the payment of a license fee of $1000 a year. As a result, the residence part of the city is entirely free from the demoralizing influence of the saloon.

In a general way the difference in population expresses the present relation between the two cities in other respects. In appearance St. Paul is more metropolitan than Minneapolis, as it is more compactly built. St. Paul lies along the side of a steep bluff. It is rugged and diverse and has the narrow streets and crowded appearance of a large city. From the crest of the hills, many magnificent residences look down upon the river. Westwardly the city straggles over the rolling country until it reaches the Minneapolis line, enclosing in the meantime the State Fair Grounds and centres of population which were originally separate municipalities, such as St. Anthony Park, Merriam Park, and Hamline. Minneapolis is built upon an almost level plain, lying between the river and Lake Calhoun, broken toward the north by a line of high ground parallel with and a mile west of the river. Its streets are broad and the houses set well back in ample grounds. Enclosed grounds are the exception. In St. Paul the fashionable residences are largely concentrated upon the crest of the bluff, while in Minneapolis they are scattered in various localities. There is also a general lack of concentration in the business districts of Minneapolis, which does not exist in St. Paul.

St. Paul's wholesale trade, if we exclude lumber and flour, is greater than that of Minneapolis. It is also the head of practical navigation on the Mississippi and the railway centre of the Northwest, although all trains reach both cities. The Minneapolis and St. Louis and the "Soo" are the only railways with headquarters in Minneapolis, while St. Paul is the headquarters of the Chicago and Great Western and of the great transcontinental lines, the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern.

The electric street-railway system in both cities is owned by one company, but the business is conducted in each city under a local management. There are 150 miles of track in Minneapolis, and 123 in St. Paul. Two busy interurban lines connect the centres of the two cities. The public-school systems are of the same general character and stand well the comparison with those of other cities. St. Paul has many children in the parochial schools. Her park system is extensive and beautiful and comprises about 1100 acres. The most extensive is Como Park, which lies in the interurban district and is a popular resort for thousands of people during the summer months. St. Paul has a large number of successful denominational educational institutions, such as Macallister College and Hamline University. The most conspicuous building in the city is the new white marble capitol now being erected by the State at an expense of over $3,000,000. The St. Paul Public Library is not equal to that of Minneapolis, but her citizens have the advantage of the use of the library of the Minnesota Historical Society, which is the miscellaneous State library.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about the characteristics of the people of these two cities. To render the situation more interesting and romantic all manner of inherent racial and sociological differences have been invented. Their struggle for supremacy has been described as exceeding in bitterness the ancient rivalry of Hooks and Kabbeljaws. Nothing could be further from the truth. The municipal and commercial rivalry was natural and beneficial, and was ordinarily kept within reasonable bounds. Both cities bounded upward under the impulse thus given to energy and enterprise. Each without the other would itself be less. The people are of the same type,—restless, ambitious empire builders. They have striven mightily and manfully in business and politics, but mingled amicably in social intercourse. What differences in character do exist are largely due to the different race elements which compose the population. If God sifted three kingdoms to obtain the seeds with which to plant New England, he resifted New England and the kingdoms for the planting of the Northwest. The present population is diverse, but the predominant element is the old Saxon blood.

For purposes of comparison, Ramsey County is St. Paul, and Hennepin County is Minneapolis. By the State census of 1895, Ramsey County had 147,537 inhabitants, of which 140,292 were in St. Paul; Hennepin County had 217,798 inhabitants, of which 192,833 were in Minneapolis. Bearing this proportion in mind, the following table, which gives the nativity of the population of the counties, is of interest:

This does not show the number of the descendants of such foreign born residents now in the counties who are included under the head of native born. It appears that the percentage of native born is much larger in Minneapolis than in St. Paul. Thus, Ramsey County with 70,261 less population, had 1129 more Irish and 5256 more Germans than Hennepin County. In Hennepin, the Norwegians and Swedes form a large element. St. Paul with its German and Irish born citizens, is Democratic in politics and strongly Roman Catholic in religion, while in Minneapolis the Scandinavians and Republicans predominate. The sons of Maine, Vermont, New York, and Ohio maintain flourishing societies, but are completely eclipsed by the sons of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They are everywhere, in all positions and all kinds of business, from the highest to the lowest. Coming of the old Germanic stock, they take to self-government and officeholding as deftly as the sons of the town meeting. At present it is not a homogeneous people but an aggregation of all the elements,—a seething cauldron of the races, the residuum of which we believe will be a type of genuine American citizenship, broadened and liberalized by the ancestral outlook upon the world.

It is fashionable at present to speak lightly of Buckle's theory of the influence of climate upon the character of a people, but it is certain that we cannot understand the development of a people unless we know something of the climatic conditions under which they live. The northwestern climate is much better than the reputation it succeeded in establishing in the early days before the blizzard centre moved eastward. While not strictly like that described in the old hymn,

"December as pleasant as May,"

there are few pleasanter localities in which to spend the entire year. It is a climate for thinking and doing. Spring and autumn are delightful beyond the power of description, and the heat of midsummer is tempered by the myriad lakes which dot the surrounding country. In midwinter the thermometer takes an occasional downward plunge which sadly disarranges the record of averages, but for four days out of every five between December and March the sun shines gloriously through an atmosphere of mountain brilliancy. Then there is in the air a hidden food of life, upon which has fed the strenuous race of men which within the short space of one life has builded two great cities where none were before.