An Udderly Ridiculous Article

Last issue’s Old News featured several grisly deaths at the hands of accidental fires. All and all an unquestionably depressing and fairly heavy topic.

So, I offer the following article as a palate cleanser.

Row Over A Cow – Stillwater Messenger – April 7, 1906

Mrs. August Miller and Mrs. Dorothy Reinsberg, of Lakeland, and a number of their neighbors appeared in the municipal court of this city to settle a dispute that occurred about a cow that was locked up by Mrs. Reinsberg for trespassing, and which led to blows between the two women.

Mrs. Reinsberg swore out warrants for the arrest of Mr. and Mrs. Miller and Judge Doe fined the latter $1: which, with costs, amounted to $34.44.

Shortly after, Mrs. Miller commenced a suit against Mrs. Reinsberg. It is a pity that the cow did not belong to the beef trust.

Conquering Nature

by Brent Peterson

Years ago once the river froze over and the steamboats were not able to come up the river, not much of anything happened until the spring thaw. No mail, deliveries or merchandise made it to the stores or the homes of Stillwater. Until Martin Mower, lumberman and boat builder, decided to use mankind’s latest know-how to challenge Mother Nature’s might.

Mower and his brother John established a lumber mill between Stillwater and Marine in 1847. It was there that Martin started building steamboats for the St. Croix River trade. It was in the winter of 1868-69 that he first tried to create an iceboat between Stillwater and Taylor’s Falls.

Although his first craft did make several trips carrying passengers and freight between the two communities, the rough ice that was encountered was enough to dampen any thoughts of continuous service with the vehicle. Mower’s next attempt at an iceboat came in the winter of 1876-77. There he created a boat and named it the “Queen Piajuk” after the daughter of an Ojibwa chief.

According to the Stillwater Gazette of January 31, 1877, the length of the keel was forty feet, breadth of beam eight feet; depth of hull, two feet. The one boiler was made by Rosser & Dean of Dubuque, Iowa – thirty-two inches in diameter, six feet in length. Two horizontal engines, geared to equal forty-horse power and to propel two iron driving wheels four feet in diameter with cogs, or spikes, on the rims that are “similar to the driving wheels of a locomotive.” The whole thing was placed on four large sleigh runners and was steered by means of “tiller wheel and wire tiller rope, attached to the forward runners and managed from the pilot house placed near the bow.”

The Gazette continued its description of the iceboat, saying “she has a single smoke stack, while near by is the steam whistle common to steam vessels. A handsome jack staff ornaments the bow, while perched jauntily on the pilot house is the figure of a swan with its wings out-stretched as if eager to regain the graceful position on the bosom of the lake.” It was estimated that the craft would be able to travel about 10 miles an hour and would be able to make the trip from Stillwater to Taylor’s Falls, 30 miles, in three hours. However, it was also planned to pull a Pullman car that was 28 feet long and eight feet wide which would naturally extend this journey.

A trial run was to be made on January 28, 1877. Some two hundred spectators arrived up in Arcola for the Queen to be put through her paces. Steam built up but the craft did not move. Several horses and townspeople armed with crowbars tried to get the boat to move, but it didn’t.

After a week of work, the Queen finally made that maiden voyage. It was Sunday, February 4th and with whistles piercing the air that the Queen Piajuk, captain by Jack Kent, came sliding into Stillwater followed closely behind by Martin Mower driving a team of horses.

Mower would continue to work on the iceboat, which did make several successful runs up to Taylor’s Falls. The following year a test run with the Queen was postponed due to thin ice. The iceboat would jump and bounce on the rough ice and it received the nickname of the “St. Croix Grasshopper.”

It is thought that the Queen made its last voyage in 1879 from Stillwater and went back to its Arcola home. In the book, Steamboats on the St. Croix by Anita Buck, it is thought that the Queen “probably reached its home port of Arcola safely, but perhaps was dismantled there. The oak timbers from the ice craft may have been used to build the pile driver Arcola.”

The ice experiment had seemed to end. But as the newspaper said, “Looking at Queen Piajuk we feel that human ingenuity has added one more laurel to the brow of him who long since brought about the successful application of steam to annihilate space.”