l, 1893, the legislature passed an act for the
building of a new state capitol in the city of St. Paul, and appointed
commissioners to carry out the object. They selected an eligible and
conspicuous site between University avenue, Cedar and Wabasha streets,
near the head of Wabasha. They adopted for the materials which were to
enter into it--granite for the lower and Georgia white marble for the
upper stories. The whole cost was not to exceed $2,000,000. The corner
stone of the building was laid on the twenty-seventh day of July, 1898,
with appropriate and very imposing ceremonies, in the presence of an
immense throng of citizens from all parts of the state. Senator Davis
delivered the oration, and ex-Gov. Alexander Ramsey laid the corner
stone. The building has reached the base of the dome, and will be a very
beautiful and serviceable structure.

On Sept. 1, 1894, there was a most extensive and disastrous fire in Pine
county. Four hundred square miles of territory were burned over by a
forest fire, the towns of Hinckley and Sandstone were totally destroyed,
and four hundred people burned. The money loss was estimated at
$1,000,000. This disaster was exactly what was needed to awaken the
people of the state to the necessity of providing means for the
prevention of forest and prairie fires and the preservation of our
forests. Shortly after the Hinckley fire a state convention was held at
the Commercial Club in St. Paul, to devise legislation to accomplish
this desirable end, which resulted in the passage of an act, at the
session of the legislature in 1895, entitled, "An act for the
preservation of forests of this state, and for the prevention and
suppression of forest and prairie fires." Under this act the state
auditor was made the forest commissioner of the state, with authority to
appoint a chief fire warden. The supervisors of towns, mayors of cities
and presidents of village councils are made fire wardens of their
respective local jurisdictions, and the machinery for the prevention of
fires is put in motion that is of immense value to the state. The forest
commissioner appointed Gen. C. C. Andrews chief fire warden, one of the
best equipped men in the state for the position, and no serious trouble
has since occurred in the way of fires.

On the ninth day of February, 1887, the Minnesota Historical Society
passed a resolution, declaring that the pretenses made by Capt. Willard
Glazier to having been the discoverer