Jutting out from the rocky coast, a sand spit nearly seven miles long, Minnesota Point is as a strong arm stretched forth to defend the harbour of Duluth against the storms which breed in the frozen North and come roaring down Lake Superior. Wisconsin Point, less than half its length, almost meets it from the other shore. Between the two is the narrow inlet through which in old times came the Canadian voyageurs—on their way across Saint Louis Bay and up the windings of the Saint Louis River to Pond du Lac, twenty miles[66] farther westward. That was in the fur-trading days of little sailing-vessels and birch-bark canoes. Now, close to its shoulder, the Point is cut by a canal through which the great black steamships come and go.  
Five-and-twenty years ago—before the canal was thought of, and when the Duluth of the present, with its backing of twenty thousand miles of railway, was a dream just beginning to be realized—Minnesota Point was believed to have a great future. Close to its shoulder a town site was staked out, and little wooden houses were built at a great rate. Corner lots on that sand spit were at a premium. The "boom" was on. The smash of '73 knocked the bottom out of everything for a while. When good times came again the town site moved on westward a half-mile or so and settled itself on the mainland. The little houses on the Point were out of the running and were taken up by Swedes—who were content, as Americans were not, to live a few steps away from the strenuou............