*P", ». i* -,1 -r Aj*y*?'" eX ^r. ^»\j/» I IQ i^ the state would spring up the greatest inland port of the world, They could not know tttis, because the age of miracles had Opportunity Beckons In passed, and it seems that only a miracle could have transformed the state of Governor Ramsey into the Minnesota of today. This accomplishment has been a miracle. It is the miracle of the North Star State civilization, the miracle of steel, of steam, of railroad and steamboat, and of the hurrying migration of the venturesome Aryan By George F. Authier. to the vacant lands of the ever-alluring West. Star of the North they called it, because its beauty appealed. I ——. Star of the North it has become because of the fruition of hope Bp N MINNESOTA there is a growing state consciousness, a coordination and the accomplishment of happiness that has occurred. Star of of effort, which must have far-reaching consequence the North it must more truly become when its latent water powers in the development of the greatest state in the Union. are developed, when the great heart of the Northwest pulses out A state so rich in natural resources that mere statistics fail the lifeblood it will generate, when its rich farm lands are fully to relate the facts, a state so ideally situated as to reach out with cultivated and there will be no vacant place that has not known one hand to the greatest inland waterway of the world, while the ministration of the plow. TH 1 with the other it exchanges greeting with the northwestern empire, !SK1 The story of Minnesota told in statistical figures reads like an Minnesota finds its lines cast in pleasant places. epic of production. Nature is found here in her most amiable mood. Streams But the development of Minnesota has only commenced. and watercourses wind about in an ever-varying setting of hill, There is no place in the world which offers so inviting afield for valley and rolling prairie. Ten thousand lakes are scattered the homeseeker and the home-builder. No state in the world about its surface in the most reckless profusion. offers such splendid opportunities of success for the man in business, Jfi Jfi Jfi With a land surface and potential wealth for the farmer, for the artisan, for the worker and for the capable of supporting almost the present population professional man. ij of the United States, it is still unfilled, It offers the anomaly of a state that is still new, while having still invites to the pioneer and the home-maker, reached an advanced stage of development. Its lands are the a condition that prevails nowhere else in all the richest in the world. Its soil needs only to be touched to yield world. richly. Its climate is bracing and inspiring. Above all, it offers These conditions are awakening the ambition the combination of production and an immediate market. and effort of the present generation, a generation At St. Paul and Minneapolis have grown up, as if by magic, which is striving to hasten forward the a lusty Twin City of over half a million population, which will day when the bread and butter state, the state soon reach the million mark. Duluth, the capital of the iron section, of corn, of clover, of wheat, of alfalfa and of the richest in the world, is the open doorway to the inland the dairy, will have come into its own. seas. Throughout the state are smaller cities, thriving and prosperous. The agricultural empires of the world have 5een located in the valleys of its great rivers. 2,000 years ago All these furnish the primary market for the ever-growing the Tigris and Euphrates valleys furnished the food for the production of the fertile soil. world's people. The valley of the Nile became the granary of Minnesota, with, its great power of production, has a population the Roman civilization. The productive area later turned to the little over two million. It has 51,749,120 acres of land valleys of the Rhine, the Loire and the Seine. But of these none surface, of which only 27,675,823 acres are in farms and of the offered the promise and hope contained in the valley of the whole, three million acres alone are state and homestead lands. Mississippi and its giant tributaries. In its development the surface of the state has only been ft is Populations grow with ever-increasing momentum and the scratched. There is room for the entire population of France or imagination hesitates to anticipate the density of population that of Germany, and they could live here under conditions infinitely a will be here. The factory will follow the farm, a population that superior to those which exist at home. It already has 9,339 miles is sure to come will support industry, rivers and waterfalls will of railway trackage, not including terminals, reaching out as be made to give up their power until eventually, there will be arteries of commerce to #he teeming Northwest on one side and located in the Mississippi valley the most prosperous civilization to the populous East on the other. the world has ever known. The present generation will see a population approximating oA ten million people. The vacant lands will be filled, for here is In Minnesota opportunity beckons, for here are still cheap lands that will increase daily in value here are still found the offered the best opportunity to the homeseeker in all the world. The cities will be built up and filled with factories to supply the opportunities of a new community joined with the advantages of nearby market of the Northwest and run by power locally developed. an already well developed section with thoroughly tilled soils and populous cities. This is not a far cry to the future, for by the past shall ye Men with far-reaching vision founded the governmental basis know what is to come. of the state. They showed this wisdom in its highest form when The days of the New Ulm Indian massacre are not far distant, they dedicated its public lands to the purpose of building up a yet where the Indians dwelt in 1864 are now the richest farms in great school fund which, in 1950, will amount to $200,000,000, the American Republic. From the wilderness that then existed and dedicated the state to the cause of education. comes the produce that finds its voice in the poem of statistics, The fathers of the state, limited as their vision must have which give Minnesota 30,780,000 bushels of potatoes, 91,000,000 been by the frontier con itions in which they lived, must have bushels of corn, a poultry and egg production of $34,000,000 sensed the future, mutt have had some vision of the approaching annually, 31,164,000 bushels of barley, 700,000 bushels of apples, years. Yet it is safe to assume they did not entirely pierce the bank deposits amounting to $491,997,559.12, 5,245,000 bushels of -v veil, for even the present generation scarcely realizes the wonderful rye, live stock valued at $161,617,739, creameries which pay their future that still awaits. patrons annually $32,067,022.23, an annual product of butter There was a poetry and romance of surrounding that must amounting to 123,117,912 pounds and valued at $50,000,000, 6,000 have appealed to the builders of Minnesota. This was the state factories representing an investment of $275,416,000 and annually of Hennepin, of Radisson, and of Groselliers. putting out products valued ft $409,420,000, and paying annually The Falls of St. Anthony had not been harnessed and to the $63,000,000 in wages. state's founders marked only the headwaters of navigation on the In spite of this wonderful story of wealth and prosperity Mississippi. While they possibly did not sense the power in these the state is not filled with people, vacant lands invite the homeseeker, falls which was later to be harnessed to turn the wheels of the and the beauty of the state makes it the playground for greatest flour industry in the world, the roar of waters must have the world. 3 contained a promise of wonders to come. In its theory of education Minnesota has not overlooked the a fact that the state is primarily an agricultural commonwealth. But they could not help but realize that Providence was in kindly and generous mood when Minnesota was created. Here The agricultural college connected with the University, its various was the source of the Father of Waters. Here were ten thousand agricultural colleges scattered throughout the state, its experiment stations and county agsnt system, makes agriculture a lakes, scattered broadcast like jewels from the workshop of the Creator. Here were rivers, forests, hills and valleys, interspersed science and enhances the earning vahie of every farmer fortunate enough to have his lines cast in Minnesota. with rolling prairies which appealed to the eye and made the It is, above all, the perfect setting for the home-maker. It landscape so beautiful that without question they chose as the motto of the state "L'Etoile du Nord," Star of the North. offers him cheap land and unrivalled opportunities for the education of the farmer in his work, for the mental and moral training not While its beauty and possibilities so appealed they could of his children and a high-grade surrounding for his family. know that, within th« lifetime of many of them, the wilderness that would be turned iil arden. They could not know within "Star of the North" the state will remain to its own children. CD "3 a "Star of Hope" it becomes to those who seek new surroundings generation the Mirm'sota forests would have provided timber for of the world, that its farm products would outrival those other and would cast their lot with a progressive community which a states, was iron whose offers all the opportunity of country still not fully developed, that its northern section underlaid with is and wealth mines of eould they together with a state whieh sufficiently developed to offer would rival the fabled Golconda. Nor know that at the point where Lake Superior juts into the edge of furnish a complete market and ideal living condition*. W! I i..1" jfd' tp'), few. SUlMStti si M&MM. iiiliSiSislM iLa'J S* S