previous works...
There are only two short histories on Minnesota’s salt spring lands, both written by William Edward Lass, a late professor of history at Mankato State University. ‘Minnesota's Quest for Salt’ was published in Minnesota History, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), pp. 130-143; and ‘Minnesota’s Salt Lands Saga’ published in Minnesota History, Vol. 53 No. 1 Spring 1992. Since they are the only articles, they are by default the definitive resources for the salt springs land history. Fortunately, both were well written and researched works, so the paucity of other sources is not a serious concern. If you wish a more detailed history of the Belle Plaine Salt Company or the 1858 Salt Spring Lands Expedition, both works are linked below.
On this site, I am simply summarizing some of Lass’ work but, with the benefit of vastly improved online search engines three decades after Lass’ careful research, augmenting them with additional details. I also updated the last three decades of the salt lands story and created maps of the original salt spring lands and the university’s indemnity lands.
Minnesota's Quest for Salt - Minnesota History, 1990
Minnesota's Salt Lands Sage - Minnesota History, 1992
and other acknowledgements....
I owe yet another debt to Rebecca Toov of the University of Minnesota Archives for arranging to digitize the land records associated with the University Salt Spring Lands. Without access to those digital records, this research would have been a much more difficult undertaking. I am also grateful to other staff at the University of Minnesota Archives, the Gale Family Library of the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Scott County Historical Society - although none are responsible for any errors in this work nor its conclusions.
Link to Land Ledger 2 containing listings of the University Salt Springs Lands
The University of Minnesota's Land Ledger 2 was an attempt to correct errors in the university's earlier land records. Although the ledger still contains a few errors, in the following web pages those mistakes were corrected using the original land transfer records stored at the Minnesota Historical Society.
Salt Spring Lands Expedition
Only a year after the Panic of 1857 began, the enabling act for Minnesota statehood ensured that 72 sections of federal land would be given to the state to support the establishment of a state university; 10 sections of land would be granted to support the construction of public buildings at the state capitol; and that 5 percent of proceeds from the sale by Congress of government lands lying within the state would be used to build roads. In addition, the enabling act provided up to 72 sections of land, about twelve salt springs, could be granted to the state for its use in developing that crucial resource.
Portrait of Henry Hastings Sibley by Thomas Cantwell Healy (~1860) and photograph of Pierre Bottineau.
The same act also required the state to conduct its first census to determine the number of representatives it would have in Congress. That census was completed in October of 1857 and among its 150,037 names were those of all the known members or associates of the Salt Spring Lands Expedition. Some, such as Governor Henry Hastings Sibley and Pierre Bottineau, a well-known Metis trader and interpreter, have well-documented histories available online. However, the civil engineer who selected the salt springs lands, James Davenport Skinner, remains relatively unknown. As is often the case, even less is known of the men who accomplished the bulk of the survey’s day-to-day work. Yet, it would be the expedition’s teamster, unnamed in the expedition reports, who would go on to play a central role in one of Minnesota’s most tragic chapters.
Link to Salt Spring Lands Expedition Members
Map showing the route of the 1858 Salt Spring Lands Expedition (from Minnesota's Salt Lands Saga, Lass, 1992).
Less than four months after Minnesota became a state, the Capital Lands and Salt Spring Lands Expedition set out from Saint Paul on September 5, 1858. Its initial task was to select lands for the state capital in Kandiyohi County but once that was accomplished, the expedition pushed on to western Minnesota in search of twelve salt springs. To lead the expedition, Governor Sibley jointly appointed James Davenport Skinner, a civil engineer, to survey land about those springs and Pierre Bottineau, a well-known Metis, to act as the expedition’s guide and interpreter. Bottineau’s fluency in a number of Indigenous languages was viewed as a necessity. Sibley and Skinner were obviously concerned that Dakota or Ojibwe bands might interfere with the survey, as receipts for the expedition included a half keg (50 pounds) of black powder along with three muskets, a bag of shot, and canister powder, which was far in excess of what the expedition might need in terms of hunting supplemental game.
Receipts for guns and powder for 1858 Salt Spring Lands Expedition (Minnesota Historical Society)
Skinner’s background was in law and surveying rather than chemistry or geology and his lack of any natural science background proved a crucial flaw in his identification of salt springs. Relying solely on taste to determine whether he considered a lake or spring to be ‘salty,’ Skinner apparently did not know that many lakes in western Minnesota and eastern Dakota Territory were highly alkaline, which affects their taste. Their alkalinity is due to leaching of calcareous-rich glacial sediments, a process which produces elevated levels of carbonate and magnesium salts. However, those carbonate and magnesium ‘salts’ have nothing to do with the sodium chloride that was the basis for the salt spring claims. As it turned out, none of Skinner’s so-called ‘salt springs actually had any salt.
Minnesota does have one lake with elevated levels of sodium chloride, which is appropriately named Salt Lake. Ironically, Skinner’s survey most likely missed Salt Lake because Governor Sibley’s instructions emphasized the quality of the claimed lands more than the worth of the salt springs. As Salt Lake straddles Minnesota’s western border, Skinner, in his quest to claim rich agricultural land, saw no reason to search along the border where half of a spring’s shore might be Dakota Territory. Hence, the 1878 Salt Springs Land Expedition never encountered Minnesota’s sole saline source.
Southeast shore of Salt Lake, Minnesota (Wikipedia photo by Skvader).
1855 Treaty of Washington
Skinner found the first three of his presumed salt springs northeast of Fort Abercrombie and the upstream river bend that would later become Fargo, North Dakota. The land around the springs was ceded by the 1855 Treat of Washington, but that treaty remains one of the most disputed treaties between the Ojibwe and United States government. Thousands of Ojibwe had attended the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe negotiations that ceded the Arrowhead Region of Minnesota, which gave that treaty some validity. Eighty-five Ojibwe leaders from most of the bands and villages affected by the treaty signed it. However, that broad representation also meant the Ojibwe were able to get somewhat favorable terms and they retained hunting and fishing rights to the ceded lands as well. The inability of government representatives to dictate the terms of the 1854 Treaty of La Point led to the decision by government officials the following year to disenfranchise most of the Ojibwe leaders.
Instead of openly inviting a wide spectrum of Ojibwe leaders to an easily accessible location, the government only invited a few Ojibwe leaders to Washington, DC, including Bagone-giizhig (Hole-in-the-Day the Younger) and Eshkibagikoonzh (Flat Mouth). Importantly, those leaders were not informed ahead of time of the visit’s purpose, only that the government wished to discuss their Minnesota lands. For those negotiations, the United States Government also unilaterally designated Bagone-giizhig and Eshkibagikoonzh as ‘head chiefs’ and negotiators for all the Ojibwe which was a complete negation of traditional Ojibwe concepts of leadership.
Eshkibagikoonzh (Flat Mouth) and Beshekee (Buffalo) were prominent Ojibwe leaders in the mid-19th century and were two of the signers of the 1855 Treaty. On their 1855 visit to Washington, they visited the studio of Italian sculptor Francis Vincenti, who had been hired to create decorations for the U.S. capitol building. Vincenti asked both men to pose and the resulting busts are among the few known marble portraits of 19th century tribal leaders. The bust of Eshkibagikoonzh (on the right) is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Despite that, the treaty terms were subsequently extended to bands and villages who were not represented at Washington which undermines the treaty’s credibility. Despite those problems, Eshkibagikoonzh and Bagone-giizhig were still able to retain Ojibwe rights to land use as in the previous year’s treaty. Yet, the treaty was not at all favorable to the Ojibwe and some Pillager Ojibwe were so angry with Eshkibagikoonzh’s participation that they killed the horse he had used to begin his Washington trip and threatened his life. Although a few uninvited Ojibwe delegates also made their way to the talks, the 1855 Treaty of Washington only had sixteen Ojibwe signatures, less than a fifth of the number who signed the 1854 accord. Those signatories only represented a few villages rather than all the Ojibwe people with claims to the ceded land.
Even then, the government failed to live up to its limited promises. Officials delayed annuity payments, which had become a necessity for many Ojibwe denied the right to follow traditional lifestyles. By 1860, the United States government owed the Ojibwe over $81,000 in delayed annuity payments ($42 million in present relative worth).
Salt Springs 10, 11, and 12
The first three ‘salt springs’ Skinner located, surveyed, and claimed were on non-surveyed, dubiously ceded Ojibwe land, which would have a major impact on their subsequent history. In choosing these lands, Skinner and Bottineau acted as pre-emptors, claiming Ojibwe lands under the assumption those lands would soon be taken. Instead, these first three claims, which Skinner labeled as springs 10, 11, and 12, remained Ojibwe land, becoming part of the White Earth Reservation in 1867. As a result, all three of those claims would be initially lost to the state.
1863 map of public surveys of Minnesota with location of Skinner's springs 10, 11, and 12 (shown by circled red square) on unsurveyed land.
Skinner's map of springs 10, 11, and 12 clearly demonstrates the pitfalls of selecting lands in unsurveyed territory. His 1858 hand-drawn map is shown here superimposed on township maps that were surveyed in 1870, three years after the area became part of the White Earth Reservation. The dark maroon line along the west side of the map is the western boundary of White Earth. Presumably the most accurate part of Skinner’s map would be the north arrow. Although Skinner attempted to portray the bends of the south branch of the Wild Rice River in some detail, he placed the lake from which the river originates a distance from its actual location and in a different compass direction. Because of the ambiguity of locating lands in unsurveyed territory, Skinner’s claims were marked by large stakes driven into the ground and blazes cut into surrounding trees.
After discovering their first three ‘salt springs’ Skinner and Bottineau moved south to find nine additional springs, six in a line across the northern border of modern Wilkin and Otter Tail Counties, another north of Otter Tail River, and their final two (labeled springs 1 and 2) along the shores of what became known as Mineral Lake. Then the expedition encountered four inches of snow on November 7th. Fearing the arrival of more powerful winter storms, the men hastily returned to Saint Paul on November 25, 1858, a half year before the May 11, 1859, deadline to claim the salt spring lands.
Ironically, only fifteen months after the Salt Spring Lands Expedition returned to Saint Paul, the East Saginaw Salt Manufacturing Company drilled Michigan’s first productive salt well, shipping barrels of brine-derived salt that summer. This significantly reduced the price of salt and Minnesota’s reliance on New York or foreign salt sources. Thirty-five years later, vast underground rock salt deposits were discovered beneath the city of Detroit. Salt prices dropped so low that salt was used to cover icy Upper Midwest winter roads, something mid-19th century Minnesotans would never have believed.
Undated photograph of salt miners beneath the city of Detroit (from Detroit News Archive).
Yet even though salt was becoming less expensive, a decade after Skinner’s expedition, the idea of Minnesota salt springs continued to entice Minnesotans, and the quest for land ownership never diminished in the slightest. Hence, Skinner’s now vacant salt spring lands proved a tempting target and it was not long before people attempted to acquire them. Somewhat surprising though, those early efforts did not arise out in the western counties where the lands lay, but along the banks of the Minnesota River at the site of Minnesota’s first and only borough, the modest community of Belle Plaine.
Belle Plaine Salt
The first notice of a salt spring at Belle Plains appears to have been an article published on April 13, 1867, in the Minneapolis Chronicle announcing the discovery of springs there bearing ‘a kind of saltish water.’ The article went on to note that according to an old Indian tradition, the spring was a long-known deer salt lick. At the time, attributing something to ‘Indian lore’ or ‘Indian tradition’ was a common journalist motif to create anonymous and untraceable ‘sources.’ However, two residents of Saint Paul, Dr. Nathan Stanton and Mason Hatfield Crittenden, acted on that report. That autumn they made the first attempt to develop the springs, sinking a pipe to the depth of sixty-five feet. In October, they showed salt samples supposedly produced from the water to Saint Paul newspapers. The October 27, 1867, Saint Paul Daily Press noted ‘It is expected that the water from further down will be much richer, and that salt of excellent quality can be manufactured. This would be an important feature of wealth should experiments demonstrate its existence in paying quantities.’ The ending caveat proved prophetic.
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October 27, 1867, Saint Paul Daily Press article on Belle Plaine salt spring.
By age and economic status, Stanton and Crittenden seemed an unlikely partnership, and it is uncertain how they met. Stanton was born on November 14, 1809, in North Carolina but around 1842 moved to Wayne County, Indiana where he worked as a physician. Upon arriving in Minnesota, Stanton changed professions, claiming he was a lumberman on the 1857 Minnesota Territory Census and a farmer on the 1860 United States Census. Neither profession apparently worked out, as by July of 1867, Stanton was again advertising as a physician in the Star Tribune, operating out of an office at the Central Drug Store, next to the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.
Ads for Stanton and Crittenden in Minneapolis and Saint Paul newspapers.
In contrast, Crittenden, twenty-five years younger than Stanton, spent most of his life as a roofer or roofing materials agent, serving as secretary and agent for the Minnesota Plastic Slate Roofing Company in Saint Paul. Crittenden was born and raised in Pittsfield, Michigan, but arrived in Minnesota sometime before his 1856 marriage in Northfield. By 1863, Crittenden was living in Wilson, Minnesota, before coming to Saint Paul in 1867 and quickly falling into partnership with Stanton.
While it is uncertain how the two men came together to work on the Belle Plaine salt spring, the reasons their partnership ended are obvious. Only seven months after publicizing their salt discovery, Stanton died unexpectedly at age 57. Two weeks prior to Stanton’s death, the Crittenden family lost all their possessions to a fire that gutted the Mackubin’s Block in Saint Paul. Bereft of funds and his partner, Crittenden concentrated on his roofing business and left others to pursue the ghost of Belle Plain salt.
Notice of Stanton's death in May 10, 1868, Star Tribune and account of MacKubin Block fire in April 22, 1868 Star Tribune with undated photograph of Mason Hatfield Crittenden.
However, others soon showed up. More importantly, while Crittenden and Stanton appear to have been legitimately focused on a possible salt source, their successors realized they could leverage the supposed salt spring for salt land grants. Those lands would ensure a profit regardless of whether or not the spring ever produced salt.
Hence, beginning in 1869 and with repeated attempts through 1875, a group of Belle Plaine residents, including many of the borough’s most influential citizens, set about to defraud the state of Skinner’s salt spring lands. Despite their inability to produce any evidence of salt, they would succeed in stealing twelve sections, or 7,680 acres, of that land.
However, others soon showed up. More importantly, while Crittenden and Stanton appear to have been legitimately focused on a possible salt source, their successors realized they could leverage the supposed salt spring for salt land grants. Those lands would ensure a profit regardless of whether or not the spring ever produced salt.
Hence, beginning in 1869 and with repeated attempts through 1875, a group of Belle Plaine residents, including many of the borough’s most influential citizens, set about to defraud the state of Skinner’s salt spring lands. Despite their inability to produce any evidence of salt, they would succeed in stealing twelve sections, or 7,680 acres, of that land.
First page of Belle Plaine Salt Company's articles of incorporation from William E. Lass' Minnesota's Quest for Salt (Minnesota History, 1990) and photograph of Belle Plaine salt well from This is Our Town by Harold Albrecht (1977).
Link to History of Belle Plaine Salt Company Fraud
Governor Austin was so upset by the company’s success in claiming the salt spring lands that in his 1872 annual message, he pushed for the establishment of a state geological survey, specifically citing the Belle Plaine well. ‘Such a survey would probably have saved the State the six sections of land consumed at Belle Plaine in the vain search for salt, the value of which alone would defray the entire expense of the undertaking, [the survey]’ After the Belle Plaine Salt Company stole a second six sections, the state legislature approved an act establishing Minnesota’s third geological survey on March 4, 1872.
Aware of the earlier incompetence and corruption associated with the state’s first and second geological surveys from 1864 to 1867, Governor Austin and the legislature decided the third survey, known as the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, would be operated by the new state university. To run that survey, university president William Watts Folwell chose Newton Horace Winchell. Winchell was appointed in June of 1872 but did not start work until August. Pleased with Winchell’s initial efforts, on March 10, 1873, the legislature directed that all proceeds from the sale of the remaining salt springs lands would be used to support the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. Winchell now had a direct interest in determining the fate of those remaining lands, a task that would continue for the next twelve years.