it was almost the only agricultural product. In the New York Exposition of 1853, Minnesota prepared a state exhibit showing an Indian canoe, wild rice, grain grown in the state, a series of pictures, and a live buffalo. The exhibit was a success, and soon Minnesota was ready to send its own immigration commissioner to New York to interview immigrants arriving from Europe and to publicize the state. Horace Greeley wrote in the New York Tribune about the fertility of Minnesota, and James M. Goodhue, owner and editor of the first newspaper in St. Paul, saw in his imagination "thousands of farms, and wheat fields swaying in the wind" and "cities crowned with towers." In 1854 one local editor was even more high-flown: "Fence the prairie fire! Dam up Niagara! Drain Lake Superior! Tame the wolf! Civilize the Indians - but don't put any limits to St. Paul's development." 9

The first means of transportation in Minnesota had been by ox-drawn carts, which moved between Fort Snelling and the new settlements in the Red River valley. The big wheels of these ox-carts were suited for muddy roads and river beds. The wheels made such a loud noise, since there was no axle grease, that in one settlement the Sunday service had to be interrupted when an ox-drawn caravan moved through the vicinity, a quarter of a mile away. Hundreds of such caravans were on the roads every year. They left Fort Gary in the spring and were in St. Paul in July. They brought the settlers their supplies and carried away their bundles of furs. The roads were old wilderness trails, where dogsleds were still sometimes used in winter. With new communities springing up rapidly, and distances growing greater, these road communications became too slow. The building of railroads definitely became the order of the day. In 1842, the westward rails had reached Buffalo, but ten years later they had already crossed the Mississippi at Rock Island, uniting the Atlantic and the midwest. In 1857 the plans for trunk lines were ready, but an economic crisis put off their realization. In 1862, there was a ten-mile stretch of rail between St. Paul and St. Anthony; three years later there were 210 miles; in 1872 there were almost two thousand miles. By that time the railroad from St. Paul to Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior was ready, to unite the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, and with that railroad in operation the farmers were able to send their grain to the mills. From there the flour sacks came back to Duluth, to be shipped via the Lakes to the big markets of the east. In the

9. Follwell, op. cit.

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