Old Mackinaw; Or, The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings by W. P. Strickland

Author:W. P. Strickland [Strickland, W. P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, General
ISBN: 9781425544522
Google: m0l5AAAAMAAJ
Publisher: J. Challen & Son
Published: 1860-01-15T00:25:46+00:00

CHAPTER XI.

Table of Contents

The entrepot of a vast commerce—Surface drained—Superiority of Mackinaw over Chicago as a commercial point—Exports and imports—Michigan the greatest lumber-growing region in the world—Interminable forests of the choicest pine—Facilities for market—Annual product of the pineries—Lumbering, mining and fishing interests—Independent of financial crises—Mackinaw, the centre of a great railroad system—Lines terminating at this point—North and South National Line—Canada grants—Growth of northwestern cities—Future growth and prosperity of Mackinaw—Chicago—Legislative provisions for opening roads in Michigan—The Forty Acre Homestead Bill—Its provisions.

The physical resources of this region are of such a nature and variety as to make Mackinaw city the entrepot of a vast commerce. This will appear, if we consider that it is the nearest point of that extensive district, including the entire north of the lakes inaccessible to Chicago. When all the lines of internal communication are completed, and the different points on the lakes settled down upon, then the real limits of Mackinaw will drain a geographical surface of three hundred thousand square miles; deducting the surface of the lakes from which, there will remain two hundred and eighty thousand square miles of country, with all the resources of agriculture and mining in the most extraordinary degree. It will be nearly three-fold that which can be drained by Chicago, and in point of territory, whether of quantity or quality, Mackinaw is vastly superior, as a commercial point. With the exception of a small portion of the mineral region, the agricultural advantages of Michigan, Upper Wisconsin, Minnesota, Canada West, and the Superior country, are at least equal, at the present time, to the district shipping at Chicago, while it is more extensive, and will have a large home market in a country affording diversity of employment. Nothing can be more obvious, than the superior advantages of Mackinaw, as a manufacturing point, over any other on the lake coast.

The value of exports and imports which flow through the Straits of Mackinaw and the Saut St. Mary was estimated a year or two since at over one hundred millions of dollars. But, who can estimate a commerce which every year increases in many fold? In 1856, there were sent through the St. Mary Canal 11,000 tons of raw iron, 1,040 tons of blooms, and 10,452,000 lbs. of copper; and the commercial value of what passed through the canal amounted to upward $5,000,000. But perhaps the most correct idea of the rapid increase of commerce in Lake Superior may be taken from the arrivals at Superior City for the last three years, taken from the Superior Chronicle of January, 1857.

In 1854 there were two steamboats and five sail vessels. In 1855 there were twenty-three steamers, and ten sail vessels; and in 1856 forty steamers and sixteen sail vessels.

We thus see that in three years the increase was seven-fold. It is scarcely possible to imagine the limits of northwestern commerce on the lake, when a few years shall have filled up with inhabitants the surrounding territories.

According to the testimony of Senator Hatch, made on

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