This week’s update from lobbyist John Tuma:

“Why cannot we, however, have a real wild park…”

Alfred J. Hill
St. Paul Dispatch, 1890*

In the late 1800s, Minnesota was at the height of its lumber days with millions of acres of virgin forest being consumed by our growing nation’s insatiable demand to build.  After a camping trip at the source of the Mississippi River, Alfred J. Hill, a prominent archaeologist, wrote the above words in an editorial calling for the creation of Minnesota’s first State Park before our wild places were all devoured by this demand.  Visionary activists like Hill and Jacob V. Brower, along with many others, pushed the Legislature for the park’s creation despite strong opposition from powerful lumbering companies who had their eyes on continued exploitation of the great white pines that surrounded Lake Itasca. (more…)