ate work. He did not
enter the publishing field without long surveys of investigation,
comparison and reflection. In need of that kind of vacation we call
"change of work and scene," Mr. Lothrop planned a western trip. The
bookstores in the various large cities on the route were sedulously
visited, and the tastes and the demands of the book trade were carefully
studied from many standpoints.

The vast possibilities of the Great West caught his attention and he
hastened to grasp his opportunities. At St. Peter, in Minnesota, he was
welcomed and resolved to locate. They needed such men as Mr. Lothrop to
help build the new town into a city. The opening of the St. Peter store
was characteristic of its young proprietor.

The extreme cold of October and November, 1856, prevented, by the early
freezing of the Upper Mississippi, the arrival of his goods. Having
contracted with the St. Peter company to erect a building, and open his
store on the first day of December, Mr. Lothrop, thinking that the goods
might have come as far as some landing place below St. Paul, went down
several hundred miles along the shore visiting the different landing
places. Failing to find them he bought the entire closing-out stock of a
drug store at St. Paul, and other goods necessary to a complete fitting
of his store, had them loaded, and with several large teams started for
St. Peter. The same day a blinding snow storm set in, making it
extremely difficult to find the right road, or indeed any road at all,
so that five days were spent in making a journey that in good weather
could have been accomplished in two. When within a mile of St. Peter the
Minnesota river was to be crossed, and it was feared the ice would not
bear the heavy teams; all was unloaded and moved on small sledges across
the river, and the drug store _was opened on the day agreed upon_. The
papers of that section made special mention of this achievement, saying
that it deserved honorable record, and that with such business
enterprise the prosperity of Minnesota Valley was assured.

He afterwards opened a banking house in St. Peter, of which his uncle,
Dr. Jeremiah Horne, was cashier; and in the book and drug store he
placed one of his clerks from the East, Mr. B.F. Paul, who is now one of
the wealthiest men of the Minnesota Valley. He also established two
other stores in the same section of country.

Various elements of good generalship came into play during Mr. Lothrop's
occup