Speech #850206557

Wheat came pouring in from the newly tilled farms. Lumbering became a major industry. Cities and towns sprang up on virgin forest and prairie lands. Farms were built from the raw land. while schools and churches carried the culture forward to the frontier of the West. Within that first decade. the beginnings of civilization had been transplanted to this wilderness and on the date of this our centennialMay 11. 1858Minnesota became a sovereign State. In those beginning years. the great tide of immigration swept on. Busy steamboats puffed up the Mississippi. the Minnesota. and the St. Croix bearing new settlers and great consignments of cargo.