McIlrath contacted Joseph S. Wilson, United States General Land Office commissioner, who replied that since ‘No further action has been taken by the State authorities toward obtaining title to the lands… In order to bring the matter forward now, the state had to present ‘a list of the lands claimed for Salt Springs with evidence of the existence of such Springs.’ The last provision was particularly troubling as the state never had any evidence of the springs’ existence, only Skinner’s assumption that any hard waters he tasted must contain salt. Consequently, McIlrath chose to ignore that requirement.

However, Wilson, upset that Minnesota had created a problem through its neglect, required McIlrath to resubmit all the state’s paperwork. That task was complicated by the loss of Sibley’s original land claims to an 1862 fire at the Otter Tail City land office. 

McIlrath was undoubtedly disappointed by what his review revealed. Nearly all the land at Mineral Lake appeared to have been claimed by settlers or double-claimed as swamp lands by the state. Twelve sections of Skinner’s land claims, nearly 7,680 acres, had been lost. Even worse, the eighteen sections of land at Skinner’s 10, 11, and 12 springs, land that Skinner pre-emptively claimed on non-surveyed Ojibwe land, had also been lost. In 1867, when the federal government attempted to consolidate all Ojibwe communities into a single reservation, that land became part of the White Earth Reservation. While the government’s attempt to force the Ojibwe onto a single reservation ultimately failed, McIlrath realized 11,520 acres of Skinner’s salt spring claims were now part of the White Earth Reservation and could not be claimed. 

1867 Treaty with the Chippewa of the Mississippi

The 1867 Treaty with the Chippewa of the Mississippi had a critical impact on the history of the state’s salt spring lands. Signed on March 19, 1867, the goal of the treaty was to force most of the Ojibwe onto a single large reservation, which would open their other lands up for timbering and land speculation. Roughly two million acres of land were taken with compensation amounting to $145,000 in goods and services to be paid for over the next ten years. Even if the terms of the treaty had been faithfully followed, the compensation amounted to only seven-and-a-quarter cents per acre, at a time when the average price for Minnesota farmland was eleven dollars. Yet, over the following years a series of legislative acts and one murder would further devastate Ojibwe control of their remaining land making their situation precarious. 

Bagone-giizhig (Hole in the Day the Younger) was one of the signers of the 1867 treaty. A charismatic, influential, and sometimes controversial leader, Bagone-giizhig opposed the government’s efforts to immediately force the Ojibwe onto White Earth and sought to ensure Ojibwe control over the reservation by excluding mixed blood traders from it. On July 27, 1868, Bagone-giizhig left Crow Wing for Washington, D.C to renegotiate the treaty. A few miles from his home, he was assassinated by a group of Leech Lake Ojibwe who later admitted they were promised payment by white and mixed-blood traders led by Clement Hudon Beaulieu (Gay-Bah-Ke-Wen-Zie), who were eager to profit from the new reservation. Bagone-giizhig’s murder allowed Beaulieu and his associates, Charles A. Ruffee and John Morrison, to gain considerable influence over White Earth and to profit at the expense of most White Earth Ojibwe families.  

At the time of the treaty, the United States agent for the Ojibwe at Crow Wing was Joel Bean Bassett, who had made a fortune as a Minneapolis mill owner before focusing his efforts on logging. Minneapolis’ first skyscraper, the iconic Lumber Exchange Building, was built during his tenure as president of the Minneapolis Lumberman’s Association. The remains of Bassett’s second sawmill later served as the foundation for the Japanese restaurant Fuji-Ya by Owámniyomni (Saint Anthony Falls) and the Dakota restaurant Owamni, before becoming the current Water Works Pavilion at Mill Ruins Park.

Bassett, who only held his position as Indian agent the year before and after the treaty was signed, was alleged to have arranged the treaty solely to open Ojibwe land for the logging industry. In 1895 he was one of several prominent loggers charged by the United States government with having illegally taken at least seventeen million feet of timber from Ojibwe lands in the White Earth and Leach Lake Reservations of which Bassett received at least four million feet. Bassett and the other lumber barons fought those accusations for years but in 1902, the United States Supreme Court found them liable. Basset died a decade later in California.

Dissemination of Salt Spring Lands 

Reconstructing and updating the state’s claims took McIlrath nearly two years to finish so the first, and what Commissioner Wilson erroneously presumed would be the last, consignment of salt springs lands occurred on January 13, 1871. That consignment consisted of 26,435 acres, the lands claimed by Skinner around springs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, and its transfer allowed the Belle Springs Salt Company to claim six sections of that land a few months later.

Despite a geological report dismissing the possibility of salt at Belle Plaine, the company successfully wrestled a second six-section grant through the legislature in 1872, raising their holdings to 7,643 acres of land. To forestall the company acquiring any more salt spring lands, the Governor convinced the state legislature to transfer the remaining salt springs acreage to the University of Minnesota with the provision that any proceeds would be used to support Winchell’s geological survey.

Considering the complicated trail of competing and incomplete land claims, the first step for Winchell was to figure out which lands the university actually held. Winchell’s 1874 summary, largely based on McIlrath’s 1871 report, suggested only 18,771 acres remained of the 46,080 acres that Skinner had claimed. Winchell’s numbers were:

• Total Salt Springs Lands Claimed by Skinner in 1878               46,080 acres
• Lands lost to White Earth Reservation in 1867                               11,520 acres
• Lands granted to Belle Plaine Salt Company in 1870 & 1872         7,643 acres
• Lands lost to states’ competing swamp lands grant                      ~1,600 acres
• Lands claimed by settlers listed in McIlrath 1871 report                 6,752 acres
• Remaining lands transferable to the University                        18,771 acres

When the legislature dedicated the remaining salt spring lands to the support of Winchell’s geological survey. Winchell and the university regents began an initiative to get indemnity lands from the federal government in lieu of the 18,771 acres the state had previously lost to competing claims. On March 13, 1876, the Minnesota legislature passed a resolution requesting the federal government provide the state with indemnity lands that had been lost as Winchell wrote ‘through no fault of the state.’ 

By any reckoning though, Winchell’s protestation of the state’s innocence was a stretch. In the crush of statehood, state officials had failed to follow through on their salt spring land claims and much of the paperwork had been lost or misfiled. Yet at the university’s bequest, the state proceeded with the resolution which soon ran into a barrage of federal requests for additional documentation.

In the meantime, Winchell’s review of the salt spring land claims bore its first fruit. On April 12, 1878, an additional 3,397.81 acres at Skinner’s springs 1 and 2 were transferred to the university. These were lands thought to have been claimed by settlers, but as was often the case on the frontier, not all claims were proven. Some claims were misfiled and others had been returned to the state. Claimants seldom paid the land’s full cost at the time of their claims. Typically, only a percentage was paid up front, followed by yearly payments on the principal and interest. If crops failed or unforeseen circumstances occurred, it was common for a claimant to default, which returned title to the state. Winchell’s review of the lands around springs 1 and 2 revealed the university could still lay claim to roughly half the acreage there, some 5.3 sections of land. 

Any concerns or suggestions?

email: Kent Kirkby ([email protected])