On April 10, 1877, in response to an expressed desire of various religious bodies, Governor Pillsbury appointed the 26th of that month as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer: “In the shadow of the locust plague,” said he, “whose impending renewal threatens the desolation of the land, let us humbly invoke for the efforts we make in our defense the guidance of that hand which alone is adequate to stay the pestilence.” The day was observed in a goodly number of congregations, but there was no great and general humiliation of the people, and there was no immediate evidence of supernatural interference. The infernal brood grew wings and began their aerial excursions in various directions. In the last days of June the swarms began rising high in the air and taking flight on different bearings. In the course of sixty days all had so risen and flown out of the state to unknown destinations. Although they had wrought damage equal at least to that of any previous year of their residence in Minnesota, the state as a whole harvested the greatest wheat crop in her history,—30,000,000 bushels, of sixty-three pounds to the bushel.
In spite of the ruin wrought in so large a portion of her territory, and of minor and ordinary losses, the period in view was one of prosperity. The population, which had risen from 439,706 in 1870 to 597,407 in 1875, increased to 780,773, according to the census of 1880. The wheat crop, which had been 30,000,000 bushels in 1877, touched 40,000,000 in 1880. The most striking evidence of material development is seen in railroad building. In the four years 1873-76 but 87 miles had been added to the 1900 miles of construction in the eleven years ending with 1872. This mileage was increased in the six years beginning with 1877 to 3278; 446 were added to the St. Paul and Pacific (now Great Northern) system.
How a corporation left in the panic year 1873 in a condition of hopeless bankruptcy was resuscitated and put into vigorous life is a story which the reader will be interested in. The “Division roads,” the main line from St. Paul to Breckenridge and the branch to St. Cloud, had gone into a receiver’s hands in August, 1873. The “Extensions” to St. Vincent and Brainerd, of which 140 miles in detached portions had been built, remained in the control of the stockholders till October, 1876, when they were turned over to trustees of the bondholders, according to the terms of the company’s contract with them. These trustees employed as their general manager the same gentleman who for three years had been receiver of the Division roads. The stockholders having given over the task of completing the roads and retaining ownership, it remained for the bondholders to decide between putting in several more millions of dollars to complete and equip the roads, or giving up and letting the property go to sale under pending foreclosure proceedings. Had they taken the former course and selected honest and capable agents, they would have not merely escaped great losses but realized large profits. The greater portion of the bonds of the system, over $17,000,000, were owned in Holland, and they had been placed by their holders in the hands of a syndicate of Dutch bankers to be controlled for the common interest.