St. Croix Riverway Time and the River: A History of the Saint Croix

CHAPTER 4:
Up North: The Development of Recreation in the St. Croix Valley (continued)

Logging vs. Recreation: River Use Conflict Comes to a Head

The Navigation Company contacted the War Department regarding the problems with open navigation on the St. Croix River. It seemed to have found a sympathetic ear with Major Frederic V. Abbot who believed his job was to maintain open navigation for all parties on the river, and not simply protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful lumber syndicate. Major Abbot asked the chief of engineers permission to prosecute the loggers under the new River and Harbors Act of March 3, 1899. The Navigation Company was also promised $90,000 to make a three-foot channel below St. Croix Falls. When the logging company got wind of this, they put pressure on their representatives in Congress. The secretary of war then ordered Abbot to stop proceeding until a full investigation could be made. By the summer of 1899, Brigadier General John W. Wilson reviewed the case, and came to a rather ambiguous decision — logging was a legitimate business and Abbot should defend the rights of others to use the St. Croix. When he asked for clarification, Abbot was told the River and Harbors Act was clear enough and individual officers would have to use their own judgment. [106]

In the meantime, the Navigation Company began to collect testimony for their own lawsuit against the St. Croix Boom Company regarding their "capricious" control over the water levels of the river. But things looked dim when the appropriation bill only produced $15,000 and a lawsuit again failed to materialize. Kent and his supporters, however, forged ahead. They bought a small boat called The Hudson with the intention that it could run if the Vernie Mac could not make the trip. For some reason, however, The Hudson never made a trip even though the Vernie Mac was busy even when the water was low. [107]

The St. Croix Boom Company geared up for action. William Sauntry, one of the principal owners of the Boom Company, apparently wanted to eliminate the excursion business entirely, and proceeded to do so in a highly creative way. He purchased the steamer Pauline in 1899 for the sole purpose of giving the excursion business a bad name by finding every sandbar on the river with no thought or care for the comfort or convenience of those aboard. Sauntry then told the Polk County Press that his experiences demonstrated that the St. Croix River above Stillwater was simply not navigable.

In early August 1899, the Navigation Company seemed to be on the verge of triumph when the federal government's barges and sand pumps arrived to improve the channel. Without any explanation, however, they were quickly dispatched to the Minnesota River for the rest of the season. Popular opinion on the river was that the lumber interests pressured the War Department to change its plans. The Polk County Press asserted, "Strenuous efforts are being made secretly by corporation capital to close this water," and the paper wondered how long the towns' people upriver from Stillwater would put up with the "insults inflicted by the company of which Sauntry is boss lumberman." [108]

St. Croix residents heeded the call. In January 1900, Major Abbot held hearing in St. Paul on the issue and found himself confronted with sixty representatives from the communities affected. Frank B. Dorothy of St. Croix Falls presented a petition from one hundred residents asking for "free and unobstructed passage" of the river. The Northwest Ordinance, historian William H.C. Folsom of Taylor Falls argued, had promised all Americans free navigation on inland waterways, and he estimated that there were over 78,000 abandoned logs embedded in the bed of the river that prevented the fulfillment of this promise. One of the most eloquent speakers was William Blanding of St. Croix Falls, who complained that the logging interests of Stillwater had driven small businesses from river towns. He pointed out that sawmills had to be shut down since they could not get any logs, power resources had been hindered, and commercial and pleasure boating were ruined. Lumbering, he argued, was a transient business whose main object was to exhaust the valley's timber supplies and move on. "When like wasting pestilence they have passed over the land and the coming fire has destroyed all traces of the footsteps and the overtaxed waters of the rivers and its tributaries once more flow free to all," Blanding opined, "then perhaps this dam company ridden country may be allowed to make use of what natural resources these greedy tyrants have left in it." [109]

The commissioner of the Minnesota Interstate Park, George Hazzard also testified against the actions of the logging company. His concerns were for visitors to the park and the excursion business, but he also was a champion of small, local businesses and industry who hoped that a free, navigable channel would attract flouring mills, brick manufacturing, and stone quarrying. Steamboat captains also had their turn. They admitted that, thanks to the efficiency of the railroads, the days of commercial packets plying the water were over as only two or three now made the run between St. Louis and St. Paul. However, the tourist business opened new possibilities for the economic enhancement of river towns. Nevers Dam could aid navigation on the river, but the logging business practice of flushing, destroyed chances for unhindered passage by creating gravel bars in the channel. [110]

The railroads also expressed their vested interest in the condition of the St. Croix River. The excursion business proved to be very lucrative. In 1897, the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad grossed $5,418 running trains between Taylors Falls and Stillwater picking up and dropping off visitors to the Interstate Parks and river. Low water levels the following season reduced their income to $1,340. If this were to continue, they would have to discontinue service. [111]

At the hearing the St. Croix Boom Company admitted they had inhibited navigation, but their argument rested on the fact that they needed to control the river or they would be out of business. They employed a large labor force, they had a huge investment in land, transportation, machinery, and buildings and supplied the nation with much needed lumber. Downriver Mississippi towns would languish if logging were restricted. And they had every legal right under state charters to operate the boom and dam. The company also argued disingenuously that interfering with the dam would ruin smaller mills on the upper St. Croix if they could not free-float logs on the river. What the company did not want to admit was that their control over the Nevers Dam had already ruined many a small mill owner up river. [112]

Abbot tried to work out a compromise. He insisted that all parties share the river with certain days allotted solely to the excursion business, such as Decoration Day, Independence Day, and the entire month of August when the winter drives were generally over. During the rest of the season, the Dam and Boom Company had the right to conduct their business as usual. The lumber interests were not happy with this arrangement. They normally still had a lot of logs on the river throughout the summer and contracts on which to deliver. If they could not hold up water at Nevers Dam, the end of summer low waters would strand the logs making it impossible to deliver the promised timber. In May 1900, Congress stepped into the conflict. It removed from the River and Harbors Act the provision that prohibited floating loose timber and logs on inland waterways and gave the secretary of war the power to establish regulations for the logging industry's use of rivers. This ensured that the conflict continued into 1901. Abbot was then replaced as district engineer and his regulations were modified to further accommodate logging interests. The Corps of Engineers then spent $28,846 between 1898 to 1907 dredging the St. Croix between Stillwater and St. Croix Falls. Despite their efforts the Stillwater logging company's continuation of sluicing logs made it impossible to maintain navigable channels. [113]

The logging industry also left behind many problems for the new hydroelectric power plant built in 1905. Sunken logs obstructed the free flow of water required by the generating station. The St. Croix Dam and Boom Company disavowed responsibility to clear the logs because the boom company did not own them. It had only stored and sorted them, and some of the logs left in the river predated the company. The owners and administrators of the Dam and Boom Company, however, shrewdly turned this situation to their advantage when they established the St. Croix Log Lifting Company and obtained a charter from the state of Minnesota that gave it exclusive rights to remove valuable logs from the river. In 1907, the Log Lifting Company removed 1,200,000 feet of lumber. The vast majority, however, were snagged near the shoreline, and few were removed from the channel. The new district engineer for the Army Corps, Major Francis Shunk, estimated that it would take years before the company got to the sunken logs in middle of the river. The owners, however, were not in any hurry as the value of the logs increased with the growing scarcity of wood. Due to the continued sluicing and flushing of the river by the lumbermen until 1914, the Corps abandoned hope to make improvements on the St. Croix in this decade. By the early 1920s, the lumbermen left the St. Croix leaving the Army Corps of Engineers with the responsibility of removing the remainder of obstructing logs. Between 1931 and 1940 the Corps snagged an additional 6,219 logs out of the river. [114]

Many steamboat excursions continued to ply the waters of the St. Croix until the 1920s, but coordinated excursions between railroads, towns, and boats never fully recovered from the conflict with the Dam and Boom Company. Other forms of transportation, such as inter-urban streetcars connected the St. Croix Valley with the Twin Cities and competed with railroads. In 1899, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company began to run cars between St. Paul and Stillwater. The streetcar made it much easier for those in the valley to go to the city for business and shopping. It also provided even easier and cheaper access for Twin City residents to enjoy a day in the St. Croix Valley. A ride from Stillwater to St. Paul cost thirty cents and took an hour and ten minutes. By 1913, cars ran every thirty minutes. In the thirty-three years the interurban serviced the valley thousands of tourists and day-trippers from the Twin Cities enjoyed the splendors of the St. Croix River. Stillwater's state prison attracted its share of tourists to view the workings of the penitentiary. Many valley residents also took the special Sunday car to Wildwood Park on White Bear Lake where they enjoyed the roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, and other amusements. However, in 1930 service was cut back to every two hours. And in the darkest days of the Great Depression the line was cut completely due to lack of money and competition with the automobile. [115]

One of the more viable recreational venues that came out of this era was rowboat concession Carl Muller and his family began operating in 1906 out of Taylors Falls. George Hazzard, then the Minnesota Interstate Park Commissioner, encouraged the Stillwater boat builder to open the business by offering a one-year lease. Muller and his family have renewed the lease ever since. The entrepreneur branched out into selling postcards with pictures of the Dalles he took himself along with other souvenirs. In 1911, he offered personalized postcards by taking pictures of tourists at the Dalles and printing them up within a few hours. Through the years Muller added to his modest fleet with modern launches that he and his wife, Katy, piloted. By 1975, after sixty-nine years in the business, Muller son Robert and his wife Ann were in charge along with their daughter and son-in-law. [116]

Figure 37. The Bayport Civilian Conservation Corps camp. The site is now occupied by an Anderson Windows warehouse. From the files of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.