User:Pfc598/St. Croix River History Draft

Todo list

WP is not a guidebook

Verifiability, not truth

Hydrography section - Rename to Geography (consistency with other river pages?) - Mention the St. Croix as one of the "original 8" in 1964 [NPS] - Major tributaries section [USGS] Namekagon Yellow Kettle Snake Wood Rush? Sunrise Trade Apple Willow Kinnickinnic - Move some of the clauses re: native names to the Naming section.

History - 1st para: mention there were territorial battles between Ojibwe and Dakota, and their allies, through the 19th century. - Find more sources on the fur trade - Find more sources on the logging industry (MHS?) - New section about Politics and Geography? Discuss formation of MN, and argument over the western boundary of WI. Why the St. Croix? [Dunn] - What happened between 1890 and 1970? Nothing? - Photo of Marine steeple in spring, for Cities and Towns section. [Orig]

Ecology - St. Croix is a largely forested river due to protected status. - Describe forest types: [MN/WI DNR info] Lower river: steep bluffs, second growth hardwood forest Patchy non-native invasives Urbanized east of TC Limestone bluffs, second growth hardwood up to Taylors Falls Dalles area: steep cliffs and pines Mixed hardwood/coniferous to source - Pineries of Snake and Kettle, Chengwatana. - Wildlife: [MN/WI DNR info] Typical fish species Native mussels and zebra mussel infestation Typical small bird species Birds of prey - bald eagles, ospreys Land mammals

Commerce and Recreation - Rename section - Add Kinnickinnic State Park, St. Croix Bluffs CP on lower part. [USGS]

Hydrography

Map of the St. Croix watershed.

The St. Croix River rises in the northwestern corner of Wisconsin, out of Upper St. Croix Lake in Douglas County, near Solon Springs, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of Lake Superior. It flows south to Gordon, then southwest. It is joined by the Namekagon River in northern Burnett County, where it becomes significantly wider. A few miles downstream the St. Croix meets the boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin, which it demarcates for another 130 miles (210 km) until its confluence with the Mississippi River. Other major tributaries include the Kettle River, Snake River, and Sunrise River joining from the west, and the Apple River, Willow River, and Kinnickinnic River joining from the east. Just below Stillwater, Minnesota the river widens into Lake St. Croix, and eventually joins the Mississippi River at Prescott, Wisconsin, approximately 20 miles (32 km) southeast of St. Paul, Minnesota.

The St. Croix River was one of the original eight rivers to have significant portions placed under protection by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1964. The upper reaches of the river in Wisconsin below the St. Croix Flowage, 15 miles (24 km) downstream from its source, as well as the Namekagon River, are protected as the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. The free-flowing nature of the river is interrupted only by a hydroelectric dam operated by Northern States Power Company at St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. The lower 27 miles (43 km) below the dam, including both sides of the river along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, are protected as part of the Lower St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. This area includes the Dalles of the St. Croix River, a scenic gorge located near Interstate Park, south of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.

Naming

The upper portion of river was known to the Ojibwa as Manoominikeshiinh-ziibi (Ricing-Rail River). Downstream of its confluence with the Namekagon, the Ojibwa renamed the river as Gichi-ziibi (Big River).

Father Louis Hennepin wrote in 1683, from information probably provided by Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut: "There is another River which falls ... into the Meschasipi ... We named it The River of the Grave, or Mausoleum, because the Savages buried there one of their Men ... who was bitten by a Rattlesnake." In the original French, this is translated as "Rivière Tombeaux".

Jean-Baptiste Franquelin's 1688 map recorded a "Fort St. Croix" on the upper reaches of the river. The name "Rivière de Sainte-Croix" was applied to the river sometime in 1688 or 1689, and this more auspicious name supplanted Father Hennepin's earler designation.

At the time of European settlement of the valley, the Ojibwe and Dakota were engaged in a long and deadly war with each other. Consequently, the portion of the river below the confluence with Trade River is called Jiibayaatig-ziibi (Grave-marker River) in the Ojibwe language.

History

The river valley and the surrounding area was originally occupied by the semi-nomadic Ojibwe, Dakota and nine other American Indian tribes. The Indians mainly lived on wild rice, fish, and game.

Sieur Du Luth, Fort St. Croix, and Perrot.

Fur trade prior to 1800.

The first Europeans arrived in the area in 1804, around the same time as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. These first arrivals were mostly fur traders seeking to purchase beaver pelts from the Indians.

In 1837 a treaty with the Ojibwe was signed at Fort Snelling which ceded all lands in the triangle between the St. Croix and the Mississippi River up to the 46th Parallel to the United States government. This opened the region to logging. The river was important to the transportation of lumber downstream, from the areas where it was being cut to the sawmills that processed it. During the 1840s, important sawmills were located at St. Croix Falls and Marine on St. Croix, but as the 1850s progressed Stillwater became the primary lumber destination. During this time the population of Stillwater boomed, several additional sawmills were opened, and the town saw an influx of capital, primarily from lumber companies based downriver in St. Louis. In 1856 construction began on a boom site two miles north of Stillwater, which was used to store and sort the lumber floating downstream and remained in operation for over fifty years. The St. Croix Boom Site is now a wayside rest and National Historic Landmark along Minnesota State Highway 95.

The lumber industry continued to grow throughout the latter half of the 19th century, with progressively larger spring drives and consequent dangers to navigation on the river above Stillwater. At its peak in 1890, logging in the St. Croix River valley produced 450 million board feet (1,100,000 m³) of lumber and logs (source). The lumber industry continued until the last major log drive in 1912 marked the end of the rich white pine forests of the area.

It was along the banks of the St. Croix, in the milltown of Stillwater, that the state of Minnesota was first proposed in 1848.