and underwent
many trials and tribulations, until it was finally completed on the
eighth day of September, in the year 1883, and has been in successful
operation ever since. As the Northern Pacific has its eastern terminus
and general offices in St. Paul, it is essentially a Minnesota road. The
same may be said of the Great Northern, although both are
transcontinental roads.

From the small beginning of railroad construction in 1862 have grown
thirty-seven distinct railroad corporations, operating in the state of
Minnesota 6,062.69 miles of main tracks, according to the official
reports of 1898, with quite a substantial addition in course of
construction. These various lines cover and render accessible nearly
every city, town and village in the state.

The method of taxation of railroad property adopted by the state is a
very wise and just one. It imposes a tax of three per cent upon the
gross earnings of the roads, which, in 1896, yielded the comfortable sum
of $1,037,194.40, the gross earnings of all amounting to $36,918,741.71.
This plan of taxation gives the state a direct interest in the
prosperity of the roads, as its taxes are increased when business is
good and the roads are relieved from oppressive taxation in time of
business depression.

The grading which was done and for which the bonds of the state were
issued was, as a general thing, utilized in the final construction of
the roads.

THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE.

In 1842 the country north of Iowa and west of the Mississippi as far
north as the Little Rapids, on the Minnesota river, was occupied by the
M'day-wa-kon-ton and Wak-pe-ku-ta bands of Sioux. The Wak-pe-ku-ta band
was at war with the Sacs and Foxes, and was under the leadership of two
principal chiefs, named Wam-di-sapa (the "Black Eagle") and Ta-sa-gi.
Wam-di-sapa and his band were a lawless, predatory set, whose
depredations prolonged the war with the Sacs and Foxes, and finally
separated him and his band from the Wak-pe-ku-tas. They moved west
towards the Missouri, and occupied the valley of the Vermillion river,
and so thorough was the separation that the band was not regarded as
part of the Wak-pe-ku-ta when the latter, together with the
M'day-wa-kon-tons, made their treaty with the government at Mendota in
1851.

By 1857 all that remained of Wam-di-sapa's straggling band was about ten
or fifteen lodges under the chieftainship of Ink-pa-du-ta, or the
"Scarlet Point," or the "Red E