BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Report of the State Constitutional Convention.

General Statutes of Minnesota.

United States Land Laws: Public Domain.

Reports of the State Auditor.

Reports of the State Department of Public Instruction.

Reports of the Regents of the University.

Address of John S. Pillsbury, before the Alumni of the University,

June 1, 1893.

History of Education in Minnesota, by John N. Greer. Circular of Information, No. 2, 1902, U. S. Bureau of Education.

History of Minnesota, by Edward D. Neill, D.D.

HISTORY OF THE ST. PAUL & SIOUX CITY RAIL

ROAD, 1864-1881.*

BY GEN. JUDSON W. BISHOP.

MINNESOTA VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY.

The Minnesota Valley Railroad Company was organized in 1864 under an act of the Minnesota Legislature approved March 4th, 1864, which act granted to that company all the "lands, interests, rights, powers and privileges" granted to the then Territory of Minnesota by and under the so-called Land Grant Act of Congress approved March 3rd, 1857, and which were conferred on the then so-called Southern Minnesota Railroad Company by act of the Legislature approved May 22nd, 1857, pertaining to the proposed line of railroad from St. Paul via Mankato and other points named to the southern boundary of the state in the direction of the mouth of the Big Sioux river, where Sioux City now is.

The said act of March 3rd, 1857, had granted to the state six sections of land per mile of the railroad as a bonus for its construction; and a subsequent act of Congress approved May 12th, 1864, granted four additional sections per mile which were duly transferred to the Minnesota Valley Railroad Company by act of Legislature approved March 2nd, 1865.

The Minnesota Valley Railroad Company was organized with an authorized capital stock of $500,000, of which $473,000 was at once subscribed and paid in.

Its principal stockholders and first Board of Directors were: H. H. Sibley, Russell Blakeley, R. H. Hawthorne, George Cul

*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, April 13, 1903.

ver, W. F. Davidson, E. F. Drake, H. M. Rice, J. L. Merriam, Horace Thompson, Franklin Steele, John S. Prince, J. E. Thompson, J. C. Burbank, T. A. Harrison, John Farrington, W. D. Washburn, and C. H. Bigelow. Of these seventeen directors, only the last three named now survive.

The officers of the company were: E. F. Drake, president; J. L. Merriam, vice-president; G. A. Hamilton, secretary; and Horace Thompson, treasurer. These gentlemen continued in their respective offices until the merging of the St. Paul and Sioux City and its subsidiary lines, with the West Wisconsin, St. Paul, Stillwater and Taylor's Falls, and North Wisconsin lines, into the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway Company in 1880.

In 1865 the road was located and constructed from Mendota to Shakopee, 22 miles; and in 1866 it was extended eastward from Mendota to West St. Paul, 6 miles, terminating at South Wabasha street, near where a freight yard and depot were reestablished last year (in 1902), and was extended westward from Shakopee to Belle Plaine, 19 miles, making then, in all, 47 miles of completed road.

About the first of April, 1867, the writer was appointed chief engineer, and under his supervision the location and construction of successive extensions were completed to Le Sueur in 1867, to Mankato in 1868, to Lake Crystal in 1869, and to St. James, 122 miles from St. Paul, in 1870.

Meantime, in 1869, the Minnesota Valley Railroad Company and the Minnesota Central Railroad Company (since absorbed by the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company) joined in the construction of the bridge over the Mississippi river, and of the line from Pickerel lake (two miles east. of Mendota) to and over said bridge and to the site of the present Union Depot in St. Paul; our company building a freight house, 40 by 300 feet, on the river bank at the foot of Robert street, so arranged on the river side as to exchange freight with steamboats, there being then no direct railway connection at St. Paul for the east or south.

ST. PAUL AND SIOUX CITY RAILROAD COMPANY.

On the 7th day of April, 1869, the name of the company was changed from the Minnesota Valley Railroad Company to

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