Fort Snelling
Fort Snelling known as Fort Saint Anthony, is a United States military fortification located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a National Park Service unit, includes historic Fort Snelling; the fort is located in Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory in Hennepin County, named after the fortification. The Minnesota Historical Society now runs the fort, located atop a bluff along the river; the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources runs Fort Snelling State Park, protecting the land at the bottom of the bluff. Fort Snelling once encompassed both parcels; the fort is designated as a National Historic Landmark and has been named a "national treasure" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 1805, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike acquired Pike's Purchase from the Sioux Nation for the United States, comprising 100,000 acres of land in the area. Significant European-American settlement began in the late 1810s.
Following the War of 1812, the United States Department of War built a chain of forts and installed Indian agents at them between Lake Michigan and the Missouri River. These forts protected the northwestern territories from Canadian and British encroachment; the Army founded Fort Saint Anthony in 1819. Colonel Josiah Snelling commanded the 5th Infantry Regiment, its soldiers constructed the original Fort Saint Anthony from 1820 to 1824. During construction, most soldiers lived at Camp Coldwater, which provided drinking water to the fort throughout the 19th century; the post surgeon began recording meteorological observations at Fort Saint Anthony in January 1820, beginning one of the longest near-continuous weather records in the country. Upon the fort's completion in 1825, the Army renamed it as Fort Snelling in honor of its commander and architect; the soldiers at the northwestern frontier outposts tried to restrict commercial use of the rivers to United States citizens, keep American Indian lands free of white settlement until permitted by treaties, enforce law and order, protect legitimate travelers and traders.
At Fort Snelling, the garrison attempted to keep the peace among the Dakota people. Colonel Snelling suffered from chronic dysentery, bouts of the illness made him susceptible to anger. Recalled to Washington, he left Fort Snelling in September 1827. Colonel Snelling died in summer 1828 from complications due to dysentery and a "brain fever". John Marsh, a native of Danvers, came to the fort during the early 1820s. At the fort, he set up the first school in the Northwest Territory, to educate the children of the officers. Marsh developed a good relationship with members of the local Dakota band, he compiled a dictionary for the Dakota language. He had been studying medicine at Harvard for two years before deciding to leave school without earning a degree, he used this opportunity to "read medicine" under the tutelage of Dr. Purcell; the physician died before Marsh completed the two-year course, so he still had no medical degree. In 1830 Fort Snelling was the birthplace of John Taylor Wood, who became known as a lieutenant in the Confederate navy.
He served on board the Merrimack at the Battle of Hampton Roads. Officer John Emerson purchased the slave Dred Scott in Missouri, a slave state, he worked and lived at Fort Snelling during much of the 1830s, having brought Dred and his wife Harriet Scott with him. Under the Missouri Compromise, slavery was prohibited in Minnesota Territory; when Emerson returned to Missouri with the Scotts, they sued for their freedom and that of their daughters, because they had been held illegally in a free territory. A longstanding precedent in freedom suits of "once free, always free" was overturned in this case, it was appealed to the United States Supreme court. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, Chief Justice Taney ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that African Americans had no standing under the constitution, so could not sue for freedom; the decision increased sectional tensions between the South. Career Army officer and artist Seth Eastman had two tours at Fort Snelling, the second a lengthy one in the 1840s when he commanded the fort.
He completed many paintings and drawings of the Dakota and other Native American peoples while here, helped record their customs and lives. He was commissioned by Congress to illustrate the six-volume study of Indian Tribes of the United States by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, published 1851-1857 with hundreds of his works; as the towns of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota were developed in this area and increased in population, there was less need for a forward frontier military post in the region. The Army sold Fort Snelling to Franklin Steele, a friend of the sitting President, James Buchanan, in 1858 for $90,000. During the American Civil War, Franklin Steele leased Fort Snelling back to the War Department for use as an induction station. More than 24,000 recruits from Minnesota were trained here. During the Dakota War of 1862, the Army used it as an internment camp, holding hundreds of Dakota women and elders as captives on the river flats below the fort through the winter of 1862–63. Hundreds died there due to disease outbreaks.
After the winter, the Dakota people interned at Fort Snelling were forced onto steamboats and taken to Crow Creek in Southeastern South Dakota. The survivors at Crow Creek were forced to move a
Moraine
A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris that occurs in both and glaciated regions on Earth, through geomorphological processes. Moraines are formed from debris carried along by a glacier and consisting of somewhat rounded particles ranging in size from large boulders to minute glacial flour. Lateral moraines are formed at the side of the ice flow and terminal moraines at the foot, marking the maximum advance of the glacier. Other types of moraine include ground moraines, till-covered areas with irregular topography, medial moraines which are formed where two glaciers meet. Moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders; the debris is sub-angular to rounded in shape. Moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may form through a number of processes, depending on the characteristics of sediment, the dynamics on the ice, the location on the glacier in which the moraine is formed.
Moraine forming processes may be loosely divided into active. Passive processes involve the placing of chaotic supraglacial sediments onto the landscape with limited reworking forming hummocky moraines; these moraines are composed of supraglacial sediments from the ice surface. Active processes form or rework moraine sediment directly by the movement of ice, known as glaciotectonism; these form push moraines and thrust-block moraines, which are composed of till and reworked proglacial sediment. Moraine may form by the accumulation of sand and gravel deposits from glacial streams emanating from the ice margin; these fan deposits may coalesce to form a long moraine bank marking the ice margin. Several processes may combine to form and rework a single moraine, most moraines record a continuum of processes. Moraines can be classified either by origin, location with respect to a glacier or former glacier, or by shape; the first approach is suitable for moraines associated with contemporary glaciers—but more difficult to apply to old moraines, which are defined by their particular morphology, since their origin is debated.
Some moraine types are known only from ancient glaciers, while medial moraines of valley glaciers are poorly preserved and difficult to distinguish after the retreat or melting of the glacier. Lateral moraines are parallel ridges of debris deposited along the sides of a glacier; the unconsolidated debris can be deposited on top of the glacier by frost shattering of the valley walls and/or from tributary streams flowing into the valley. The till is carried along the glacial margin; because lateral moraines are deposited on top of the glacier, they do not experience the postglacial erosion of the valley floor and therefore, as the glacier melts, lateral moraines are preserved as high ridges. Lateral moraines stand high because they protect the ice under them from the elements, causing it to melt or sublime less than the uncovered parts of the glacier. Multiple lateral moraines may develop as the glacier retreats. Ground moraines are till-covered areas with irregular topography and no ridges forming rolling hills or plains.
They are accumulated at the base of the ice as lodgment till, but may be deposited as the glacier retreats. In alpine glaciers, ground moraines are found between the two lateral moraines. Ground moraines may be modified into drumlins by the overriding ice. Rogen moraines or ribbed moraines are a type of basal moraines that form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow in an ice sheet; the depressions between the ribs are sometimes filled with water, making the Rogen moraines look like tigerstripes on aerial photographs. Rogen moraines are named after Lake Rogen in Härjedalen, the landform’s type locality. End moraines, or terminal moraines, are ridges of unconsolidated debris deposited at the snout or end of the glacier, they reflect the shape of the glacier's terminus. Glaciers act much like a conveyor belt, carrying debris from the top of the glacier to the bottom where it deposits it in end moraines. End moraine size and shape are determined by whether the glacier is advancing, receding or at equilibrium.
The longer the terminus of the glacier stays in one place, the more debris accumulate in the moraine. There are two types of end moraines: recessional. Terminal moraines mark the maximum advance of the glacier. Recessional moraines are small ridges left. After a glacier retreats, the end moraine may be destroyed by postglacial erosion. Recessional moraines are observed as a series of transverse ridges running across a valley behind a terminal moraine, they form perpendicular to the lateral moraines that they reside between and are composed of unconsolidated debris deposited by the glacier. They are created during temporary halts in a glacier's retreat. A medial moraine is a ridge of moraine, it forms when two glaciers meet and the debris on the edges of the adjacent valley sides join and are carried on top of the enlarged glacier. As the glacier melts or retreats, the debris is deposited and a ridge down the middle of the valley floor is created; the Kaskawulsh Glacier in the Kluane National Park, has a ridge of medial moraine 1 km wide.
Supraglacial moraines are created by debris accumulated on top of glacial ice. This debris can accumulate due to ice flow toward the surface in the ablation zone, melting of surface ice or from debris that falls onto the glacier from valley sidewalls. Washboard moraines known as minor or corrugated moraines, are low-amplitude ge
National Natural Landmark
The National Natural Landmarks Program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only national natural areas program that identifies and recognizes the best examples of biological and geological features in both public and private ownership; the program was established on May 18, 1962, by United States Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. The program aims to encourage and support voluntary preservation of sites that illustrate the geological and ecological history of the United States, it hopes to strengthen the public's appreciation of the country's natural heritage. As of November 2016, 599 sites have been added to the National Registry of National Landmarks; the registry includes nationally significant geological and ecological features in 48 states, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands; the National Park Service administers the NNL Program and if requested, assists NNL owners and managers with the conservation of these important sites.
Land acquisition by the federal government is not a goal of this program. National Natural Landmarks are nationally significant sites owned by a variety of land stewards, their participation in this federal program is voluntary; the legislative authority for the National Natural Landmarks Program stems from the Historic Sites Act of August 21, 1935. The NNL Program does not have the protection features of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Thus, designation of a National Natural Landmark presently constitutes only an agreement with the owner to preserve, insofar as possible, the significant natural values of the site or area. Administration and preservation of National Natural Landmarks is the owner's responsibility. Either party may terminate the agreement; the NNL designation is made by the Secretary of the Interior after in-depth scientific study of a potential site. All new designations must have owner concurrence; the selection process is rigorous: to be considered for NNL status, a site must be one of the best examples of a natural region's characteristic biotic or geologic features.
Since establishment of the NNL program, a multi-step process has been used to designate a site for NNL status. Since 1970, the following steps have constituted the process. A natural area inventory of a natural region is completed to identify the most promising sites. After landowners are notified that the site is being considered for NNL status, a detailed onsite evaluation is conducted by scientists other than those who conducted the inventory; the evaluation report is peer reviewed by other experts to assure its soundness. The report is reviewed further by National Park Service staff; the site is reviewed by the Secretary of the Interior's National Park Advisory Board to determine that the site qualifies as an NNL. The findings are provided to the Secretary of the Interior who declines. Landowners are notified a third time informing them that the site has been designated an NNL. Prospective sites for NNL designation are aquatic ecosystems; each major natural history "theme" can be further subdivided into various sub-themes.
For example, sub-themes suggested in 1972 for the overall theme "Lakes and ponds" included large deep lakes, large shallow lakes, lakes of complex shape, crater lakes, kettle lake and potholes, oxbow lakes, dune lakes, sphagnum-bog lakes, lakes fed by thermal streams, tundra lakes and ponds and marshy areas, sinkhole lakes, unusually productive lakes, lakes of high productivity and high clarity. The NNL program does not require designated properties to be owned by public entities. Lands under all forms of ownership or administration have been designated—federal, local and private. Federal lands with NNLs include those administered by the National Park Service, National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and Wildlife Service, Air Force, Marine Corps, Army Corps of Engineers and others; some NNL have been designated on lands held by Native tribes. NNLs have been designated on state lands that cover a variety of types and management, as forest, game refuge, recreation area, preserve.
Private lands with NNLs include those owned by universities, scientific societies, conservation organizations, land trusts, commercial interests, private individuals. 52% of NNLs are administered by public agencies, more than 30% are privately owned, the remaining 18% are owned or administered by a mixture of public agencies and private owners. Participation in the NNL Program carries no requirements regarding public access; the NNL registry includes many sites of national significance that are open for public tours, but others are not. Since many NNLs are located on federal and state property, permission to visit is unnecessary; some private property may be open to public visitation or just require permission from the site manager. On the other hand, some NNL private landowners desire no visitors whatever and might prosecute trespassers; the reasons for this viewpoint vary: potential property damage or liability, fragile or dangerous resources, desire for solitude or no publicity. NNL designation is an agreement between the federal government.
NNL designation does not change ownership of the property nor induce any encumbrances on the property. NNL status does not transfer with changes in ownership. Participation in the NNL Program involve
Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a major metropolitan area built around the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in east central Minnesota; the area is known as the Twin Cities after its two largest cities, the most populous city in the state, Saint Paul, the state capital. It is an example of twin cities in the sense of geographical proximity. Minnesotans living outside of Minneapolis and Saint Paul refer to the two together as "The Cities". There are several different definitions of the region. Many refer to the Twin Cities as the seven-county region, governed under the Metropolitan Council regional governmental agency and planning organization; the Office of Management and Budget designates 16 counties as the "Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington MN–WI Metropolitan Statistical Area", the 16th largest in the United States; the entire region known as the "Minneapolis–St. Paul MN–WI Combined Statistical Area", has a population of 3,946,533, the 14th largest, according to 2017 Census estimates. Despite the Twin moniker, both cities are independent municipalities with defined borders.
Minneapolis is somewhat younger with more modern skyscrapers downtown, while Saint Paul has been likened to an East Coast city, with quaint neighborhoods and a vast collection of well-preserved late-Victorian architecture. Minneapolis was influenced by its early Lutheran heritage. Saint Paul was influenced by its early French and German Catholic roots; the first European settlement in the region was near what is now known as the town of Stillwater, Minnesota. The city is 20 miles from downtown Saint Paul and lies on the western bank of the St. Croix River, which forms the border of central Minnesota and Wisconsin. Another settlement that began fueling early interest in the area was the outpost at Fort Snelling, constructed from 1820 to 1825 at the confluence of the Minnesota River and the Mississippi River. Fort Snelling held jurisdiction over the land south of Saint Anthony Falls, thus a town known as Saint Anthony grew just north of the river. For several years, the only European resident to live on the south bank of the river was Colonel John H. Stevens, who operated a ferry service across the river.
As soon as the land area controlled by Fort Snelling was reduced, new settlers began flocking across to the new village of Minneapolis. The town grew and Minneapolis and Saint Anthony merged. On the eastern side of the Mississippi, a few villages such as Pig's Eye and Lambert's Landing developed and would soon grow to become Saint Paul. Natural geography played a role in the development of the two cities; the Mississippi River Valley in this area is defined by a series of stone bluffs that line both sides of the river. Saint Paul grew up around Lambert's Landing, the last place to unload boats coming upriver at an accessible point, some seven miles downstream from Saint Anthony Falls, the geographic feature that, due to the value of its immense water power for industry, defined the location of Minneapolis and its prominence as the Mill City; the falls can be seen today from the Mill City Museum, housed in the former Washburn "A" Mill, among the world's largest mills in its time. The oldest farms in the state are located in Washington County, the eastern most county on the Minnesota side of the metropolitan area.
Joseph Haskell was Minnesota's first farmer, harvesting the first crops in the state in 1840 on what is now part of Afton Township on Trading Post Trail. The Grand Excursion, a trip into the Upper Midwest sponsored by the Rock Island Railroad, brought more than a thousand curious travelers into the area by rail and steamboat in 1854; the next year, in 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published The Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem based on the Ojibwe legends of Hiawatha. A number of natural area landmarks were included in the story, such as Lake Minnetonka and Minnehaha Falls. Tourists inspired by the coverage of the Grand Excursion in eastern newspapers and those who read Longfellow's story flocked to the area in the following decades. At one time, the region had numerous passenger rail services, including both interurban streetcar systems and interstate rail. Due to the width of the river at points further south, the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area was one of the few places where the Mississippi could be crossed by railroad.
A great amount of commercial rail traffic ran through the area carrying grain to be processed at mills in Minneapolis or delivering other goods to Saint Paul to be transported along the Mississippi. Saint Paul had long been at the head of navigation on the river, prior to a new lock and dam facility being added upriver in Minneapolis. Passenger travel hit its peak in 1888 with nearly eight million traversing to and from the Saint Paul Union Depot; this amounted to 150 trains daily. Before long, other rail crossings were built farther south and travel through the region began to decline. In an effort by the rail companies to combat the rise of the automobile, some of the earliest streamliners ran from Chicago to Minneapolis/Saint Paul and served distant points in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the only vestige of this interstate service comes by Amtrak's Seattle/Portland to Chicago Empire Builder route, running once daily in each direction, it is named after James J. Hill, a railroad tycoon who settled on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul at what is now known as the James J. Hill House.
Like many Northern cities that grew up with the Industrial Revolution, Minneapolis and St. Paul experienced shifts in their economic base as heavy industry declined in the 1960s and 1970s. Along with the economic decline of the 60s and 70s came pop
Misfit stream
A misfit stream is a river, either too large or too small to have eroded the valley or cave passage in which it flows. This term is used for a stream or river with meanders that are not proportional in size to the meanders of the valley or meander scars cut into its valley walls. If the misfit stream is too large for either its valley or meanders, it is known as an overfit stream. If the misfit stream is too small for either its valley or meanders, it is known as an underfit stream; the term misfit stream is incorrectly used as a synonym for an underfit stream. An underfit stream is a type of misfit stream whose discharge is too small to be correlated with either existing channel characteristics, i.e. meander radius and channel width, or valley size An underfit stream can result when glaciation modifies the landscape by creating glacial troughs. The rivers that occupy such valleys after the ice has retreated are not in proportion with the size of the valley. Given the scale of most glacial troughs all of them contain misfit streams.
Misfit streams can be caused by reductions in the discharge of the stream. Channel size responds to variations in discharge, but valley size responds over much longer timescales. Many causes of reduced discharges are possible. If misfit streams are widespread in an area, climate change a reduction in precipitation, is to be the cause. If a single river appears to be a misfit stream, it may be as a result of anthropogenic interference through groundwater extraction or dam construction upstream. Natural causes include other changes in drainage patterns. For instance, New Zealand's largest river used to flow through the Hauraki Plains to the North Island's east coast, but changed its course to exit on the west coast due to a large volcanic eruption, leaving its former course through the 1-km wide Hinuera Gap occupied by only a small stream. A misfit stream named Nose Creek in Calgary, Alberta: 51°7′56″N 114°3′39″W A misfit river named Battle River just south of Camrose, Alberta: 52°58′1″N 113°9′57″W U.
S. Geological Survey, further clarification of a misfit stream
Mankato, Minnesota
Mankato is a city in Blue Earth, Le Sueur counties in the state of Minnesota. The population was 41,720 according to 2016 US census estimates, making it the fifth largest city in Minnesota outside the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area; the county seat of Blue Earth County, it is located along a large bend of the Minnesota River at its confluence with the Blue Earth River. Mankato is across the Minnesota River from North Mankato. Mankato and North Mankato have a combined population of over 56,000 according to the 2017 census estimates, it encompasses the town of Skyline. North of Mankato Regional Airport, a tiny non-contiguous part of the city lies within Le Sueur County. Most of the city is in Blue Earth County. Mankato is the larger of the two principal cities of the Mankato-North Mankato metropolitan area, which covers Blue Earth and Nicollet counties and had a combined population of 94,149 at the 2010 census; the 2017 Census estimate is 100,939. Mankato was designated a Metropolitan Statistical Area by the US Census Bureau in November 2008.
Mankato was named the second best college town in the United States by Schools.com in 2017. The area was long settled by various cultures of indigenous peoples. After European colonization began on the East Coast, pressure from settlement and other Native American tribes caused various peoples to migrate into the area. By the mid-19th century, four Dakota language–speaking divisions of the Dakota Sioux were the primary indigenous group. Mankato Township was not settled by European Americans until Parsons King Johnson in February 1852, as part of the 19th-century migration of people from the east across the Midwest. New residents organized the city of Mankato on May 11, 1858; the city was organized by Henry Jackson, Parsons King Johnson, Col. D. A. Robertson, Justus C. Ramsey, others. A popular story says that the city was supposed to have been named Mahkato, but a typographical error by a clerk established the name as Mankato. According to Upham, quoting historian Thomas Hughes of Mankato, "The honor of christening the new city was accorded to Col. Robertson.
He had taken the name from Nicollet's book, in which the French explorer compared the'Mahkato" or Blue Earth River, with all its tributaries, to the water nymphs and their uncle in the German legend of Undine.'... No more appropriate name could be given the new city, than that of the noble river at whose mouth it is located." While it is uncertain that the city was intended to be called Mahkato, the Dakota called the river Makato Osa Watapa. The Anglo settlers adapted that as "Blue Earth River". According to Frederick Webb Hodge, in his "Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico," Volume 1, page 801, the town was named after the older of the two like-named chiefs of the Mdewakanton division of the Santee Dakota, whose village stood on or near the site of the present town. Ishtakhaba known as Chief Sleepy Eye, of the Sisseton band of Dakota Indians, was said to have directed settlers to this location, he said the site at the confluence of the Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers was well suited to building and river traffic, yet safe from flooding.
On December 26, 1862, the US Army carried out the largest mass execution in U. S. history at Mankato following the Dakota War of 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota Native Americans were hanged for their parts in the uprising. A military tribunal had sentenced 303 to death, but President Lincoln reviewed the record and pardoned 265, believing they had been involved in legitimate defense against military forces. Episcopal Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple had urged leniency in the case, but his position was not politically popular in Minnesota, nor was Lincoln's intervention. Two commemorative statues stand on the site of the hangings. In 1880, Mankato ranked fourth in size in the state; the population was 5,500. Former Vice President Schuyler Colfax died while traveling in Mankato on January 13, 1885. Mankato was the basis for Deep Valley in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy series of children's books and novels; the children/young adult wing of the Blue Earth County Library is named in her honor. In Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel Main Street, heroine Carol Milford is a former Mankato resident.
Lewis describes Mankato as follows: "In its garden-sheltered streets and aisles of elms is white and green New England reborn", alluding to its many migrants from New England, who brought their culture with them. Lewis wrote a substantial portion of the novel while staying at the J. W. Schmidt House at 315 South Broad Street, as now marked by a small plaque in front of the building. In the Little House on the Prairie television series, Mankato is a trading town that the citizens of Walnut Grove visit, it does not appear in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. The 1972 film The New Land, a sequel to The Emigrants, both by Swedish director Jan Troell, depicts the mass execution of the 38 Dakota Indians at the end of the 1862 Dakota War. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.26 square miles, of which 17.91 square miles is land and 0.35 square miles is water. The Minnesota, Blue Earth, Le Sueur Rivers all flow through or near the city. Mankato has type Dfa. Winters are cold, with snow cover beginning between mid-November and mid-December, ending in March most years.
However, Mankato receives less snow than areas to its north and east. For example, Minneapolis, 75 miles northeast of Mankato, averages over 54 inches or 1.37 metres of snow per winter season, compared to Mankato's seasonal average of 35 inches or 0.89 metres. The coldest m
