Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1896 — RED LAKE RESERVATION. [ARTICLE]

RED LAKE RESERVATION.

Grand Rnsh for Homes to Take Place on May J 5. In an irregular rectangle In northwestern Minnesota, wife a length of 112 miles and a breadth of 100, wife a frontier of about 500, and containing 900,000 acres ready for settlement, is the great Red Lake reservation, the last of the large northwestern Indian reservations. It is to be,opened to the settler on May 15. The entire reserve consists of about 4,000,000 acres, but much of it contains pine and will not be allowed for settlement, while more is to be reserved for the 1,500 Indians of the' Red Lake Chlppewaa. and will not come into the market nntil the band is wiped, out or has become -sufficiently civilized to take and improve allotments and cease to be the ward of the nation. The reservation is virgin territory, of meadow, oak openings, reclaimable bog, prairie and brush lands, an anbroken wil--dernesa of pine and hardwood forest, of tamarack, cedar and spruce swamp, of muskeg and of lake, brook and river. Save the freighters’ roads to and from the trading post at the agency at the south shore of the lake, in the center of the lands, and fee marks of the surveyor’s ax and scribe on section lines and corners, there are no signs of the intrusion of the white man on this the greatest hunting and fishing ground held for the northwestern Indians. Were it not for the prevalent industrial and financial depression there would be a rush to this promised land as great as was

that at the opening of the Oklahoma country, and as it is there is the greatest movement of people that the Northwest has ever seen. German and Scandinavian farmers are in the majority of incomers. The States of lowa, Minnesota and Dakota have furnished the largest quota. Southern Michigan, the Dunkard colonies of Indiana, Nebraska, and even the New England’States are looked on to be represented later by hundreds of colonists. The Red Lake lands are beautiful for situation, well watered by streams whose sources are in never-failing springs, while ten to fifteen feet w r ill tap the underground veins in any part of the lands to be opened. There is no danger of drouth. There are no prettier locations for homes in all the West than on the streams that the Red Lake Indians have so zealously guarded for these many years, and are now about to give up. Around the streams and bordering the lakes is the timber growth, which, next to the meadow grass, will yield to the fortunate possessor the mast ample returns until the cleared land may produce crops. This timbered growth comprises all the woods common to the Morth, poplar predominating, and all in a thrifty condition. The timber is interspersed with hazel bushes, an unfailing sign of excellent soil. Several railroads are preparing to cross the lands in the near future, most of them running to the Lake Superior entrepot of Duluth, which will give the finest market in the NorthAefct to the grain afid pi-oduee raised.' Among these roads is the Farmers’ Railroad of the North Dakota agriculturists, under the lead of D. W. Hines. The opening of this /reservation will have widespread results. It will push the frontier into Canada; it will settle the vacant lands in northern Minnesota and make them tributary to the wholesalers of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth; it will double the population of the surrounding towns in a month; it will add 25,000 people to the census of Minnesota in the first year; it will infuse new blood and new life into the farming communities of the Northwest.