Historic Contexts Study and Phase II Inventory (Downtown Elk River) 2022

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Elk River Historic Context: Transportation,1848-1950 From the time of its earliest permanent Euro-American settlement, Elk River has enjoyed a good location along well -traveled river and land routes. This historic context extends from Pierre Bottineau's trading post on the river to the construction of Highway 10. The townsites of Orion and Elk River were adjacent to an oxcart trail used by fur traders that followed the east bank of the Mississippi River between St. Paul and Sauk Rapids and then west along the Sauk River to the Canadian farming region at Pembina. It was in steady use by the time that the Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. 30 Travelers forded the Elk River near its mouth and followed the Mississippi to Sauk Rapids and north. By themid-1850s, a 150-mile military road was constructed from Point Douglas near Hastings to Fort Ripley, on approximately the same route. Elk River and its early millsite appear on the Map of General Government Roads in the Territory of Minnesota, (1854). ai Pierre Bottineau is credited with establishing a trading post at the mouth of the Elk River, in what became Orono, or Uppertown. There is no evidence today of the log building erected on Block 2, lots 5 and 6 of the Auditors Addition to Elk River. (Some accounts credit David Faribault with establishing the post here in 1846, which he reportedly sold to Bottineau.)32 The presence of a trading post and the military road was attractive to those who made the first farm and mill claims in the area. Bottineau, ever on the move, remained long enough to build a hotel south of his trading post in Lowertown, or Elk River. Pierre Bottineau, like pioneer Joseph R. Brown, appears in many developing locales in the Minnesota Territory as a trader and speculator. Born in what is now Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1817, he was of French and Ojibwe ancestry. He worked as a guide for Henry Hastings Sibley and the American Fur Company, for army and geological expeditions throughout his career, and as a hunter, trapper, and land speculator and promoter of settlement. About the time he set up the trading post at Elk River he was an investor in the original plat of St. Anthony, and was working as a guide on explorations and hunts. 3'3 . Following the routes of explorers and traders, those seeking good waterpower sites were attracted to the Falls of St. Anthony as well as other sites where tributary rivers met the Mississippi, Steamboat and then rail transportation was essential to the distribution of their products. Steamboat traffic above the Falls of St. Anthony was initiated in 1850-51 with the Governor Ramsey, which made the hundred- mile trip between St. Anthony and Sauk Rapids in six hours. 34 Navigable water extended only to Sauk Rapids, except in times of high water. Passengers and freight were carried on the Governor Ramsey, as well as the North Star and H.M. Rice, new boats that began service in 1855. The service was prone to low seasonal water levels and did not compete with rail service and was generally discontinued by 1874. However, the Davis Island Boom Company and other lumber interests operated steamboats and a variety of craft for logging operations; the 1900 census for Elk River notes that two young natives of Quebec, John Ward and Humphrey Guane (?), were among those employed as river drivers. Conflicting with steamboat traffic, the dramatic log drives of timber from the northern pineries were a seasonal event along the river, with the traffic handled by boom companies. Elk River Historic Contexts Study Draft 412002 13