Minnesota, Nicollet County, near Fairfax
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With hundreds of men and some 175 horses, the garrison had a gargantuan appetite for wood, hay, grain, corn, and beef. Unable to meet the requirements of the post through any direct federal supply system, the War Department issued contracts to civilian suppliers offering the lowest bids. For years, this system made Fort Ridgely the best market in the Minnesota River valley for farmers and businessmen.
The post also provided much-appreciated services to the community. The army surgeons treated and sold medicines to area residents. Mail could be picked up or dropped off at the fort. Groceries and a variety of goods could be purchased at the sutler's store. Local farmers could use the post's slaughterhouse (located one mile from Ridgely) and buy lumber from the post's sawmill.
Getting Here
From 1853 to 1856, steamboats were the principal mode of transportation for military personnel and supplies going to and from Fort Ridgely. The presence of the post and increasing white settlement led Congress to improve and build new military roads in the territory. By 1858, land routes had mostly replaced the water routes to the fort.
Minnesota Historical Society
Fort Ridgely
(Forts, Castles • Industry & Commerce • Roads & Vehicles) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
With hundreds of men and some 175 horses, the garrison had a gargantuan appetite for wood, hay, grain, corn, and beef. Unable to meet the requirements of the post through any direct federal supply system, the War Department issued contracts to civilian suppliers offering the lowest bids. For years, this system made Fort Ridgely the best market in the Minnesota River valley for farmers and businessmen.
The post also provided much-appreciated services to the community. The army surgeons treated and sold medicines to area residents. Mail could be picked up or dropped off at the fort. Groceries and a variety of goods could be purchased at the sutler's store. Local farmers could use the post's slaughterhouse (located one mile from Ridgely) and buy lumber from the post's sawmill.
Getting Here
From 1853 to 1856, steamboats were the principal mode of transportation for military personnel and supplies going to and from Fort Ridgely. The presence of the post and increasing white settlement led Congress to improve and build new military roads in the territory. By 1858, land routes had mostly replaced the water routes to the fort.
Minnesota Historical Society
Fort Ridgely
(Forts, Castles • Industry & Commerce • Roads & Vehicles) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
The First White Man on these Shores Landed Here October 1606
In the late 19th century, this building was a center for political and economic life for the town of Weatherford and for Parker County. It was built around 1870. James Robertson Couts and John A. Fain established the first bank west of Dallas in this building, after Couts made a fortune selling cattle out west. Couts operated the bank with several partners, including Henry Warren, until 1877. Warren, a freighting contractor and thoroughbred stockbreeder, had previously been associated with the Warren Freight Train Massacre of 1871.
In June 1959, a tornado roared over the south rim of the canyon directly before you. Its path was along Granite Creek to your left and through what used to be Granite Creek Campground. One person was killed. The twister ripped up timber and laid it out in the pattern you see now.
Who was Frank Hamilton? No one really knows. Simple grave markers pay a humble tribute to the five miners buried at the Sand Park Cemetery between 1898 and 1914. Little more is known than their names and year of death. Most of the other hard-rock-era miners who had family and means chose to be buried in "consecrated ground" in metropolitan areas like Missoula and Deer Lodge.
About 350 million years ago, much of Montana was submerged under a shallow sea. Billions of tiny marine creatures thrived in the water and when they died their bodies settled into the muck on the sea bed. After hundreds of millions of years of accumulation and many more millions of years it metamorphosed into the pale gray rocks that known today as Madison Limestone. The limestone is common throughout Montana, eastern Idaho, northern Wyoming, and in the Dakotas. In Montana, the limestone beds are from 1,000 to 2,000 feet thick in places. Because Madison Limestone resists weathering and erosion much better than most other kinds of rocks, it forms many of the spectacular cliffs and dramatic ridges that make Montana such a scenic place to drive through. A magnificent outcrop of Madison Limestone is visible on the north side of Interstate 90 just a few miles east of this rest area. The limestone pinnacles were exposed when the soil around them eroded away, creating the dramatic canyon along the Clark Fork River. The red streaks visible on the rocks and soil is iron oxide.
The river is named for the Kootenai tribe that lived and hunted in this part of Montana and adjoining territory in Idaho and Canada. They were settled south of Flathead Lake in 1855 with the Salish on the Flathead Reservation.
Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) Women's service in the military during the Second World War challenged the tradition of all-male armed forces. Between 1941 and 1946, close to 22,000 volunteers enlisted in the CWAC and were posted to bases at home and abroad. Working in such unconventional settings transformed their life and ambitions. Joan Kennedy, later its commander, opened the first CWAC office on the Esquimalt base on 29 August 1941. The Corps contributed to Allied victory, paved the way for future generations of Canadian service women and raised questions about the equality of women in the civilian world.
Constructed in 1912-1913 during the Victoria building boom, this structure originally opened as the Royal Victoria Theatre, owned by a group of local entrepreneurs. Theatres of this type, presenting live dramatic, musical and vaudeville performances, were constructed across Canada between 1913 and 1930. While they were among the grandest theatres ever built in this country, few now exist. This theatre's impressive bricK and terra cotta facade and ornate classically-inspired interior have provided an appropriate setting for generations of events central to the social and cultural life of Victoria.
From 1878 to 1956 coast artillery installations protected the city of Victoria and the naval base at Esquimalt. Temporary batteries were constructed in response to the Anglo-Russian crisis of 1878, and in the 1890s Canada negotiated with Great Britain for the building of a series of permanent defences to be manned by British troops. Canada took control of these fortifications in 1906 and, by the end of the Second World War, they had been rebuilt and greatly expanded. They were declared obsolete in 1956.
Born near Levis, Demers was trained at the Seminary of Quebec, ordained in 1836 and sent in 1838 as a missionary to the Columbia. His ministry extended from the interior of British Columbia to Oregon. First pastor of St. John's Church of Oregon City, he was appointed in 1846 first Bishop of Vancouver Island with responsibility for New Caledonia and the Queen Charlotte Islands. In the following decades Bishop Demers oversaw the transition of his diocese from the fur trade era to that of a settled colony. By the time of his death in Victoria, the territory in which he had laboured was Canada's sixth province.
This place, chosen by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in 1903 for its harmonized elements of Nature expressing the principles of "feng shui", is a significant legacy of the first Canadians of Chinese origin. Traditionally it was a sanctuary of temporary repose before final interment in China, a pattern which reflected the early aspirations of these immigrants to return to their homeland. After the Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, it was no longer possible to ship remains back to China. In 1961, bones from across Canada were finally laid to rest here.
For over a century, St. Ann's played an important role in the educational life of Western Canada. It served as the regional motherhouse for the Sisters of St. Ann, the major female Roman Catholic teaching and nursing order in British Columbia, which had opened its first school on the site in 1858. Inspired by convent designs in the Sisters' native Quebec, the Academy was built in three stages between 1871 and 1910. Among its notable features is the chapel, built as Victoria's first Roman Catholic church in 1858 and later attached to the rear of the convent. St. Ann's and its gardens are among Victoria's most venerable landmarks.
Soaring skywards with its bold array of coloured brick, stone and slate, St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral displays the confident spirituality that characterizes the best religious architecture of the High Victorian Gothic style. Designed in 1892 by Perrault and Mesnard of Montréal, St. Andrew's was inspired by the medieval cathedrals of Europe, whose emphatic verticality and picturesque asymmetry greatly appealed to 19th-century Roman Catholic taste. The wall patterns, created by combining building materials of different colours, are a distinctive feature of the mature phase of the Gothic Revival style.