Minneapolis

Minneapolis is the principal industrial, commercial and financial centre of the North-west, with an immediate trade territory em bracing Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana, and the northern part of Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the seat of the Ninth Federal Reserve Bank, serving a territory in which there are 1,368 banks. Deposits in the 18 local banking institutions amounted to $369,568,000 on March 1, 1937; and debits to individual accounts aggregated for the year 1934. The 923 factories and 993 wholesale houses had a total annual business of $689,367,548 during 1933.. With the com pletion of improvements undertaken by the U.S. Government in 1894, navigation of the Mississippi up to the heart of the city was opened on July 3, 1917, when the first steamer passed through the new lock and tied up at the new municipal dock. Since then a revival of river traffic (for freight) on the Upper Mississippi has set in, and this will be an important supplement to the transport facilities afforded by the ten trunk railways and numerous motor truck lines which focus at Minneapolis. The terminal yards of the railroads have a capacity of 35,00o freight cars; and 623,790 were received and despatched in 1927. The enormous water-power of the Falls of St. Anthony, of which 6o,000 h.p. is utilized, was the original factor determining the development of Minneapolis as a manufacturing centre. The perpendicular fall of the water is about 5o f t. and the rapids below add about 35 ft. In 1868 erosion of the soft limestone ledge threatened to destroy the source of power, but the loss was averted by the construction of a series of dams, a wooden "apron," and a concrete floor (com pleted 1879) at the joint expense of the U.S. Government and the citizens of Minneapolis. Flour-milling has long been the city's chief industry. The vast lumber industry, developed earlier and for many years equally important, reached its peak in 1899, with an output of 600,000,000 board feet, and then gradually dwindled, as the pine forests were exhausted and replaced by wheat fields, until in 1920 the last saw-mill went out of existence. The flour mills have a daily capacity of 49,259 bbl., and the grain elevators can store 92,190,050 bushels. The total output of the mills in 1935 was 6,636,159 barrels. Minneapolis is still the largest primary wheat market and the largest producer of flour and other grain products in the country, but since the World War reduction of freight rates via the Great Lakes has operated to transfer some of the grain trade and milling business to Buffalo and other points in the East. It is one of the world's largest markets for high grade butter, its own creameries producing $5,856,189 worth in 1929, and it is the largest flaxseed market and producer of linseed oil and cake, with mills having a capacity of 16,500,000 bu. of flax, 893,00o bbl. of oil, and 337,00o tons of cake. Other manu factures are electrical machinery ; furniture ; confectionery ; foun dry and machine-shop products ; structural and ornamental iron work. Seven of the railroads have construction and repair shops in the city, employing together some 3,631 men. The aggregate factory output in 1933 was valued at $170,788,548. These products were manufactured by 923 establishments employing 23, 447 workers, who earned an aggregate of $21,820,601 for the year.

History.

The first European visitor of record to the site of Minneapolis was Father Louis Hennepin, the French Jesuit mis sionary, who discovered the Falls of St. Anthony and named them for his patron saint. Probably he was preceded by some of the adventurous coureurs de bois, few of whom left written records of their travels; and Radisson and Groseilliers seem to have visited the region two decades earlier. The land east of the Missis sippi became U.S. territory at the close of the American Revolu tion, but the west side was under Spanish and then French sovereignty until the purchase of the Louisiana territory in 1803. In 1766 the site was visited by the American traveller, Jonathan Carver; and in 1805 by Lieut. Pike, who bought from the Indians for a military reservation a tract including the greater part of the west side of the city. The fort was built in 1819. In 1822 its commandant set up a lumber mill, and a little later used it to grind flour also, but it was never profitable. In 1838 Franklin Steele built the first claim shanty on the east side of the Missis sippi, opposite the Falls; by 1845 there was a population of 200 and the village of St. Anthony was incorporated; in 1848 Steele dammed the east channel of the river above the Falls and erected a group of saw-mills; and in 1852 Richard Rogers built a new and modern flour-mill. Meanwhile, by special act of Congress in 1849, permission was given to two Mexican War veterans to settle on the military reservation west of the river. Squatters followed, until by the time the land was opened to settlement in 1854 there was a population of about 200, who set up a village government in 1855, and named their settlement Minneapolis. There was great rivalry for commercial and industrial leadership between the two settlements. • St. Anthony was chartered as a city in 186o; Minneapolis in 1867 ; in 1870 the population of Minneapolis was 13,066, of St. Anthony, 5,013; and in 1872 they united, under the name of the larger. About 1859 the milling industry began to develop. Farmers hauled their wheat to the St. Anthony mills from as far north as St. Cloud and as far south as Mankato, and camped on the island below the Falls until they could get it ground. The period of great expansion began about 1870, when the lumbering industry had provided an accumulation of capital and the agricultural development of the country was increasing the supply of wheat. The output increased from 200,000 bbl. in 1870 to 2,051,840 in 188o, 6,988,83o in 1890 and 15,982,725 in 190o. The maximum on record was 18,541,650 bbl. in 1916. In 1878 some of the mills were destroyed by a flour-dust explosion, in which 18 employees lost their lives. Pop. in 1880 was 46,887; in 1890 164,738; in 1900 202,718; in 1910 301,408; and in 1920 380,582. Minneapolis had (1934) a low general death rate (10.4), a low infant mortality (47.4), little illiteracy, (.8), a small proportion of children employed for wages, a high per centage in school, a high percentage of home ownership and an index figure for cost of living above the average for large Ameri can cities.