Some Notes on the Growth of Population in Minnesota

T HE settlement of Minnesota may be divided into three periodsthe pioneer stage, characterized by subsistence agriculture and completed in I 870; the wheat era, in which the spread of population overrode natural differences in the landscape; and the present period of generalized farming, accompanied by the rise of urban centers and a closer adjustment to the surface configuration. The series of maps, Figures 2 to 6 and 8 to I I,1 showing the growth of population and wheat production, illustrates some of the outstanding features of the rise of settlement. The first permanent settlement in Minnesota was made in I837 in the delta region between the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. From then until I850 the population was engaged in the pioneer exploitation of furs and depended on material shipped from the eastern United States to supply its needs. Consequently, th'e first villages were located along the main rivers, which led to the east by way of Dubuque, Ia. Another factor contributing to the localization along the streams was the importance of military posts, which were erected at the junction of rivers and at portages on the rivers. Thus the outline of settlement was established, with Mankato, Minneapolis, and Stillwater as the principal towns. Between these outposts and the east, small agglomerations and isolated farmsteads sprang up along streams in the broadleaf forest zone (Fig. i). By I870 the pioneer stage of settlement had passed (Fig. 3). Wheat replaced the former subsistence crops of corn, oats, potatoes, and hay. Population continued to show a close relationship to the broadleaf zone, probably because of the familiarity of the settlers with that type of natural landscape. Densities approaching those of the present day were to be found in most of the counties in the southeast. Westward expansion was confined to the alluvial soils except in the broadleaf areas. The main extension was toward the northwest and was in the Big Woods. The other amoebalike fingers of settlement were in all instances associated with broadleaf forests along the rivers rising in either the prairie zone or the coniferous. The distribution of those farms, which were more than frontier establishments, corre

Geography · Population · Population growth · Sociology · American Environmental and Regional History · Demography · History

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