Those ribbons of steel A third “might-have-been” in our early history was the impact of the arrival of the steel tracks of the Minneapolis and Pacific Railroad in 1886.4 As with the previous forks, the path taken by the community was not one specifically chosen by the pioneers themselves. The direction they would take was determined by powerbrokers they never knew. As with the other forks in our history, we cannot possibly know what the community would have been like had no railroad ever come, or if it had come directly through the center of Maine Prairie. The Minneapolis and Pacific Railroad Company was one of four railroad companies established by basically the same team of St. Anthony investors and powerbrokers. They were mostly the millers of Minneapolis who were busy establishing themselves and their giant flour mills that gave us the names we still look for on our grocery shelves: Pillsbury and Gold Medal. It was their fortunes, their dreams, and their feuds with railroad magnates of Chicago and the steamship owners on the great lakes, that put down rails through Kimball Prairie. The first sizeable flour mill was built in 1854 in the village of St. Anthony, near the famous falls built to harness the power of the mighty Mississippi. The few houses on the opposite side of the river had recently been named Minneapolis. It would be 1872 before the two towns were merged while the mushrooming of the milling industry was getting its explosive start. But the giants of the industry, including John S. Pillsbury and William D. Washburn, were already in a struggle with the greatest empire-builder of them all, James J. Hill. Hill had no great desire to support the millers of St. Anthony as he forged his own trails of steel. He bypassed St. Anthony, and his policies threatened the very survival of the mills. He stymied their efforts to get their product to the east, and he stymied their search for wheat from the prairies in the west. Shipping tariffs were set higher for processed flour than for the grain itself. Harvested wheat bypassed St. Anthony, sent by rail either up to Duluth to meet the steamship lines Hill also controlled or shipped around St. Anthony and on to Chicago. The reader is invited to read about these economic battles elsewhere.5 Our glimpse is brief, only to note how it impacted the Maine Prairie community. The millers fought their battles by becoming railroad owners themselves. They secured a charter to establish a connecting line with the established line from St. Paul to Duluth. But, as Dorin notes, “the Twin City flour mills were at the mercy of the Chicago rate-makers who cared little about marketing concerns of the millers.” Their next steps took them to Wisconsin, designing a route where they could control the whole route and establish shipping rates that would serve their needs and fill their own pockets. They would rail their product to Sault Ste. Marie and then move it from their own railroad to their own steamers for its trip east. Thus began the construction of the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie and Atlantic Railway in 1884, reaching Sault Ste. Marie in 1887. Construction was just beginning when the millers realized that it would only solve part of the problem – getting flour from their mills to the consumers in the east. They wrestled next with the issue of getting wheat to their mills in St. Anthony. “Not only did they need a railway east, but also one to the wheat-growing regions. Consequently they chartered the Minneapolis and Pacific Railway in 1884 and began construction in 1886.” The construction was quick, and the “right-of-way was laid out parallel to and cutting the territory half-way between the line of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoby Ry., (G.N.) through St. Cloud, and its line through Willmar from the Twin Cities.” They sped between those established routes controlled by their nemesis, James J. Hill. In so doing, the course was set five miles south of Maine Prairie Corners, through the barely identifiable hamlet called Kimball Prairie. The amazing speed with which the Minneapolis and Pacific Railway was built did not give the communities along the way time to prepare, nor for entrepreneurs to speculate. The company employed more than 2,000 men and 500 teams. Construction began from Minneapolis in early 1886, and before Christmas the construction crews completed the rails 122 miles to Glenwood and completed the grade 218 miles, all the way to Lidgerwood in the Dakota Territory. The following year the track would reach Boynton, N.D., where it would meet up with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. In addition, tracks were laid east from the Twin Cities to Turtle Lake, Wisc. Gjevre reports that “16 locomotives…, eight passenger cars, five combines, 325 box cars and 150 flat cars were on the roster.” He concludes, “The bold westward thrust gave Minneapolis an independent supply of hard Spring wheat.”6 The coming of the railroad reshaped communities, the rails acting like magnets drawing the community to themselves. Annandale grew around the new depot; South Haven claimed dominance from its older sibling, Fair Haven; and the once-bustling hamlet of Maine Prairie Corners bowed quickly to the blossoming village of Kimball To be continued in two weeks…. NOTES 4 The 122 miles of track laid in 1886 and the completion of the line the following year to Boynton, N.D., gave Minneapolis a line through the rich wheat-growing areas on the Minnesota prairie. A year later the railroad would consolidate with three companion lines as the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Saulte Ste. Marie Railroad Company, more comfortably and commonly referred to as the Soo Line. 5 Many books discuss the life and times of the empire-builders like Hill, Washburn and Pillsbury, and the rise of Minneapolis to be the world leader in milling. A similar array of books describe the railways, a number focusing on the Soo Line itself. The reader might choose Patrick Dorin’s The Soo Line or John A. Gjevre’s Saga of the Soo. Most accounts focus more heavily on the later years, but A History of the Soo Line Railroad by James W. Lydon gives a better glimpse of the very beginnings. This undated manuscript is available at the Minnesota Historical Center. 6 A year later, forced to seek additional outside financing, the millers were also forced by their new partner, the Canadian Pacific, to consolidate their four railroads into the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Sault Ste. Marie Railroad. That mouthful gave way in normal conversation to the easier “Soo Line.”
