SAINT PAUL

capital of Minnesota, U.S., and seat of Ramsey county. St. Paul is a port of entry at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River near its junction with the Minnesota River. The city adjoins Minneapolis on the west, and together they form the Twin Cities metropolitan area. St. Paul lies along a deep S-shaped bend of the Mississippi and is built upon a series of bluffs rising from the river to the surrounding plains. In 1680 the Franciscan missionary Father Louis Hennepin passed the site, and in 1766 Jonathan Carver, searching for the Northwest Passage, probed a nearby cavern (since known as Carver's Cave). In 1805 Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, leader of an American expedition to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi, made an unofficial treaty there with the Dakota (Sioux) for possession of the region, including the site on which the military outpost Fort Snelling was later built. The first land claim was made in 1838 by Pierre Pig's Eye Parrant. The settlement was known as Pig's Eye until 1841, when Father Lucian Galtier built a log chapel dedicated to St. Paul. In 1849 St. Paul became the capital of the newly formed Minnesota Territory and was made the state capital when Minnesota was admitted to the Union in 1858. St. Paul's historic importance in the development of the Upper Midwest was as a commercial centre located near the head of navigation on the Mississippi River. Furs were its first products for the outside market. In 1862 the first train left the city on the 10-mile (16-kilometre) track of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. In 1883 a great celebration marked the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway from St. Paul to the West Coast, and 11 years later the Great Northern Railway, under the leadership of James J. Hill, was completed with St. Paul as the eastern terminus. These railroad developments gave the city its name of gateway to the great northwest. In 1882 the Union Stock Yards Company was established by the railroads. By the mid-20th century the livestock market, now in suburban South St. Paul, was one of the world's largest public livestock markets in salable receipts. St. Paul is now a major transportation, financial, and industrial centre. Highly diversified manufactures include automobiles, electronic equipment, computers, abrasives, magnetic tape, refrigerators, construction equipment, advertising specialties, beer, and food products. There are also oil refineries, foundries, and printing and chemical plants. The city is the seat of the College of St. Catherine (1905), Hamline University (1854), Macalester College (1874), Bethel College and Bethel Theological Seminary (1871), Luther Seminary (1869), and Concordia College (1893). The state capitol, Minnesota's third, was designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1904. Dominating the concourse of the 19-story city hall and county courthouse (1931) is the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles' Indian God of Peace, a 44-foot- (13-metre-) high memorial carved of white Mexican onyx. Nearby are the Fort Snelling State Park and several ski areas. St. Paul's Winter Carnival is a popular festival. Inc. town, 1849; city, 1854. Pop. (1991 est.) city, 373,303; MinneapolisSt. Paul MSA, 2,495,640.