Anson Northrup News Today

St. Paul residents on Nov. 7 will go to the polls and vote on increasing the city's overall sales tax by a percentage point, with the goal of raising nearly $1 billion over 20 years to fund arterial road reconstruction and major parks projects.

The Red River along the eastern edge of North Dakota was a vital trade route for Native Americans, Metis, fur traders, and then Americans and Canadians. However, by the 1910s, the need for river transportation had been firmly supplanted by trains and automobiles. On this date in 1913, the Fargo Forum announced that one of the last links to the heyday of the river trade was broken. Charles B. Thimens, a former steamboat captain, had died.

Commencing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada the Red River trail squirreled its way down the Red River Valley and down the Minnesota River Valley to Mendota and later St. Paul, Minn. Thus began a half century of commerce between the Selkirk colonies in Manitoba, Canada and St. Paul.