Franklin Steele was an early and significant settler of Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania

Chester County, Pennsylvania

-State parks:*French Creek State Park*Marsh Creek State Park*White Clay Creek Preserve-Demographics:As of the 2010 census, the county was 85.5% White, 6.1% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American or Alaskan Native, 3.9% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian, 1.8% were two or more races, and 2.4% were...

 of Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 descent, Steele worked in the Lancaster

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster is a city in the south-central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Lancaster County and one of the older inland cities in the United States, . With a population of 59,322, it ranks eighth in population among Pennsylvania's cities...

 post-office as a young man, where he once met James Buchanan

James Buchanan

James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....

.

Early success

With encouragement from his future brother-in-law Henry Hastings Sibley

Henry Hastings Sibley

Henry Hastings Sibley was the first Governor of the U.S. state of Minnesota.-Early life and education:...

, Steele saw opportunities in the western frontier and traveled to Fort Snelling via the steamboat Burlington, arriving June 18, 1838; he soon became a storekeeper at the fort. At that time, the land on both sides of the Mississippi River

Upper Mississippi River

The Upper Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River upstream of Cairo, Illinois, United States. From the headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the river flows approximately 2000 kilometers to Cairo, where it is joined by the Ohio River to form the Lower Mississippi...

 at St. Anthony Falls was controlled by the U.S. Government as part of the Fort Snelling Reservation. However by 1837 over 150 squatters had staked unofficial claims on fort property. In 1838, the fort commander, Joseph Plympton convinced the government to release the east bank of the river for settlement, hoping to stake a personal claim on the valuable land closest to the Falls. But Steele surreptitiously staked the first claim on the choicest land before sunrise on the first day of legal settlement. He claimed a half-mile of east-bank riverfront, controlling half of the water power of St. Anthony Falls; adjacent property was claimed by Pierre Bottineau

Pierre Bottineau

Pierre Bottineau was a Minnesota Frontiersman.Known as the "Kit Carson of the Northwest", he was an integral part of the history and development of Minnesota and North Dakota. He was an accomplished surveyor and his many settlement parties founded cities all over Minnesota and North Dakota...

 (1817–1895), a Métis

Métis

A Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English...

, of French-Canadian, Ojibwe, and Dakota

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

 descent.

Steele's sister, Abbian, would marry a prominent physician, Thomas R. Potts

Thomas R. Potts

Thomas Reed Potts was an American physician, civic leader and the first Mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota. After graduating from medical school, Potts moved across the country and eventually found his way to the young settlement of St. Paul. Active in civic life and popular in his medical practice,...

 in 1847. Potts would become the first Mayor of St. Paul.

Lumber mills

Eventually, in 1847, Steele secured financing, in the form of $12,000 for a 9/10 stake in the property. On May 18, 1848 president Polk

James K. Polk

James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...

 approved the claims made in St. Anthony, and Steele was able to build his dam on the east side of the river above the Falls, blocking the east channel. The dam extended diagonally into the river 700 feet (213.4 m), was 16 feet (5 m) high, and was secured to the limestone riverbed. Its thickness tapered from 40 feet (12 m) wide at its base to 12 feet (4 m) wide at the top. Steele dispatched logging crews to the Crow Wing River

Crow Wing River

The Crow Wing River is a tributary of the Mississippi River approximately in length. The river arises in a chain of 11 lakes in southern Hubbard County, Minnesota and flows generally southeast, entering the Mississippi at Crow Wing State Park, northwest of Little Falls, Minnesota. Its name is a...

 in December 1847 to supply pine for the his sawmill

Sawmill

A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....

, and by September 1, 1848 sawing commenced using two up-down saws. He was able to sell the lumber readily, supplying construction projects in the booming town. The new community at the Falls attracted entrepreneurs from New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

, many of whom had experience in lumber and milling. He had hired Ard Godfrey to help build and run the first commercial sawmill at the Falls. Godfrey knew the most efficient ways to use natural resources, like the falls, and the great pine forests, to make lumber products. Godfrey built the first home in St. Anthony, Steele had the town platted in 1849, and it incorporated in 1855.

Foothold on west bank

Although St. Anthony was beginning to prosper, the west side of the Mississippi remained firmly under the control of Fort Snelling. Steele knew that whoever could stake their claim on the west bank of St. Anthony Falls would control the second half of the vast source of water power. Late in 1849, Steele convinced his friend John Stevens

John H. Stevens

John Harrington Stevens was the first authorized resident on the west bank of the Mississippi River in what would become Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was granted permission to occupy the site, then part of the Fort Snelling military reservation, in exchange for providing ferry service to St. Anthony...

 to negotiate a deal to secure 160 acre (0.6474976 km²) in present-day Minneapolis. In exchange, Stevens would ferry troops across the river to supply the new Fort Ripley. In the summer of 1851 the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux

Treaty of Traverse des Sioux

The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was a treaty signed on July 23, 1851, between the United States government and Sioux Indian bands in Minnesota Territory by which the Sioux ceded territory. The treaty was instigated by Alexander Ramsey, the first governor of Minnesota Territory, and Luke Lea,...

 was "negotiated" wresting nearly all remaining Minnesotan land from the Indians

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

. In 1852 Congress

32nd United States Congress

The Thirty-second United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1851 to March 3, 1853, during the third and...

 passed a bill to relinquish 26000 acres (105 km²) of Ft. Snelling, opening the door for the ultimate development of Minneapolis. By 1854, 300 squatters occupied the area, and in 1855 Congress recognized the squatters' right to purchase the land they had claimed. The west side quickly developed scores of new mills and consortia. They built a dam diagonally into the river to the north, which, along with Steele's dam created the inverted V-shape, still apparent today. Steele created the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company in 1856 with three New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 financiers. The company struggled for several years, due to poor relations with the financiers, a depression, and the Civil War. In 1868 the firm reorganized with new officers including John Pillsbury

John S. Pillsbury

John Sargent Pillsbury was an American politician, businessman, and philanthropist. A Republican, he served as the eighth Governor of Minnesota from 1876 to 1882.John S. Pillsbury was born in Sutton, New Hampshire...

, Richard and Samuel Chute, Sumner Farnham, and Frederick Butterfield.

First Mississippi River bridge

The two communities of Minneapolis and St. Anthony shared the resources of the Falls. Both towns grew quickly and developed a number of industries at the falls. The earliest waterpowered facilities were sawmills; flour mills soon followed. For many years river crossing between the communities was via a rope-drawn ferry, by foot when the river surface was frozen, or on floating log booms that often filled the channel.

Although he ran one such ferry, as early as 1852, Steele anticipated a need for a permanent bridge to span the river near present-day Hennepin Avenue

Hennepin Avenue Bridge

The Hennepin Avenue Bridge is the structure that carries Hennepin County State Aid Highway 52, Hennepin Avenue, across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota at Nicollet Island. Officially, it is the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge, in honor of the 17th-century explorer Louis Hennepin, who...

. He formed the Mississippi Bridge Company to build a 620 feet (189 m)-long, 17 feet (5 m) wide suspension bridge, linking Minneapolis to Nicollet Island

Nicollet Island

Nicollet Island is an island in the Mississippi River just north of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, named for cartographer, Joseph Nicollet. DeLaSalle High School and the Nicollet Island Inn are located there, as well as three multi-family residential buildings and twenty-two restored...

 and hired Thomas Griffith to design it. The bridge was opened on 23 January 1855 with a large celebration. As a private enterprise, tolls were levied: five cents per pedestrian, twenty-five cents per horse-drawn wagon, and two cents for swine and sheep.

Steele had previously (in 1853) built a shorter bridge to cross the channel from Nicollet Island to St. Anthony; together these created the first permanent bridge to span the Mississippi at any point along its length. They linked the two cities, which legally merged in 1872, taking the name Minneapolis: a compound of the Dakota Indian word, "minne" or "mni" for "water", and the Greek "polis" for city.

Purchase of Fort Snelling

By 1858, Franklin Steele bought the fort and 8000 acres (32.4 km²) surrounding for $90,000, as the government no longer needed a frontier outpost at that location. But during the Civil War, he leased it back to the government for use as an induction station. After the war was over Steele leased the land to settlers and the city began to grow. The town of Minneapolis became a city in 1867. He ultimately became prosperous from lumber, the suspension bridge, and land deals.

The University of Minnesota

In 1851 the territorial legislature of Minnesota decided to create a university and four acres (near present-day Central and University Avenues) in St. Anthony was donated by Franklin Steele.

Places bearing his name

• Steele County, Minnesota
  Steele County, Minnesota
  As of the census of 2000, there were 33,680 people, 12,846 households, and 9,082 families residing in the county. The population density was 78 people per square mile . There were 13,306 housing units at an average density of 31 per square mile...
  
  
• Franklin Steele Square - (Portland Avenue & 16th Street East)