by St. Croix Scenic Byway on June 9, 2013
Logging and the Great Hinckley Fire
America was coming of age and lumber was needed to build the great cities and surrounding communities. The greater St. Croix valley had more pine and hardwood forests than could ever be used up in a lifetime (or so it was thought).
Many came to strike it rich, others came to steal what the land had to offer, but the unwise practices used in cutting the trees caused death and disaster—and acts of heroism that saved many.
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by St. Croix Scenic Byway on June 9, 2013
Point Douglas to Superior Military Road
The year is 1850 and Minnesota is a territory but not yet a state—there are no passable roads connecting St. Paul and Lake Superior. The US Congress has just passed the Minnesota Road Act to provide a vital land connection between the navigable waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Superior.
Even though the road was never fully completed it was used heavily to carry settlers and support commerce until railroads came to the region in 1870. About half of the original Military Road alignment still exists and the St. Croix Scenic Byway follows much of it.
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by St. Croix Scenic Byway on June 9, 2013
For most of its length, the St. Croix River is too deep to ford or walk across. As towns and connecting roads were built in the region, ferry locations and licenses to operate were established, making it possible to cross the river.
Of the ferries that once existed along the river, many of the sites that did not evolve into bridge locations are, today, canoe landings. One of the first ferry crossings noted was at the “battle ground” site at the head of Lake St. Croix (in Stillwater), and the longest operating ferry (over 100 years) was at Marine on St Croix.
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by St. Croix Scenic Byway on June 9, 2013
Steamboats
The first steamboat to make its way upriver to the Dalles of the St. Croix was the Palmyra. It had been chartered in 1838 to carry men, and supplies to construct a sawmill at St. Croix Falls. Steamboats were used to push rafts of logs down stream and to carry passengers and freight.
A large number of the best boats on the Upper Mississippi as well as those that navigated the St. Croix were built in St. Croix valley river towns—nearly every town can be credited with building at least one steamboat, if not many more. River business began falling off when the first iron horse entered the valley in 1870.
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by St. Croix Scenic Byway on June 9, 2013
Rivers: The St. Croix, Sunrise, Snake, Kettle and more.
The Dakota and Ojibwe used the rivers of the St. Croix valley for centuries—rivers supported hunting, fishing, harvesting wild rice, and migration between summer and winter camps.
Throughout the 18th century, extending into the early 19th century, the St. Croix and its tributaries brought settlers and lumber companies that cut the trees and floated billions of feet of logs, jamming rivers with logs on their way to sawmills farther down river. Rivers had once been the only means of transportation into or out of the region.
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Logging and the Great Hinckley Fire
