John Tuma: In the Footprints of Minnesota Business Visionaries

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07/30/10 - "…sharks and speculators, men who have amassed fortunes not in legitimate businesses but by systematic robbery of the people."

William D. Washburn
Minneapolis Tribune
October 28, 1873*

William D. Washburn was referring to railroads that controlled access of Minneapolis flour milling interests to markets in the East and Europe and the wheat fields stretching across Minnesota and the Dakotas.  There is little to remind us of the significant role William D. Washburn played in the development of Minnesota.  There is Washburn High School in Minneapolis and an off-the-beaten-path residential street in north Minneapolis, but they could have been named after his wealthy older brother C.C. Washburn.  Nonetheless, the battle William led against the railroad conglomerates in the late 1800s helped shape Minnesota and create one of our nation's great cities -- Minneapolis. 

Washburn was a leader among the many like him who came from New England to find their fortune at the headwaters of the Mississippi. 

John Tuma

They were focused, hard-working idealists with a dream to make America a dominant economic force in the world.  William had the added trait of being a hard-driving promoter, earning the nickname of “Young Rapid” by his family because he was constantly on the move with new ideas.

William was the youngest son of the exceptional Israel and Martha Washburn family from Livermore, Maine.  Israel Sr. was a poor hardscrabble farmer and Justice of the Peace from the backwoods in Maine where his sons learned to be industrious and politically active.  They were staunch abolitionists who played a key role in the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s.  One of the boys, Elihu Washburn, moved to Illinois where he became a congressman and good friend of Abraham Lincoln.  Elihu played a critical role in Lincoln's selection as Republican presidential candidate at the Chicago Republican convention in 1860.  Elihu was also a leading voice in suggesting Ulysses S. Grant to President Lincoln as commander of the Union Army, and later served as Grant’s campaign manager for the presidency.  Israel Jr. became governor of Maine.  His brother, C.C. Washburn, became governor of Wisconsin and one of the leading industrialists of the upper Midwest.

As the youngest of the Washburn boys, William received the college education none of his older brothers enjoyed in part supported by his successful brothers.  William also benefited from exceptional access to the places of political and economic power in the growing northern economy also as a result of his brother's success.  Out of a desire to seek his own fame, he moved to the west bank of St. Anthony Falls to assist his brother C.C. Washburn in the management of his newly acquired waterpower rights for the infant state of Minnesota in 1857.  The constant promoter and builder William soon tired of the day-to-day management of his brother’s Washburn-Crosby Milling Co., which one day under more steady management became the milling giant General Mills.  He would later help launch another milling venture with the Pillsbury family that would see great success.  By the 1880s, these industrious New England entrepreneurs developed a milling process for northern wheat, creating more superior baking flour to any known up until that time. 

William soon realized that the Minneapolis milling companies were held hostage by the railroads from the East.  Recognizing the wealth to be made from this "gold-medal" flour, William convinced the mill owners to go head-to-head with the railroad companies and develop their own rail line which would later became known as the “Soo” line.  Unlike other railroad schemes of the period, this effort was financed privately with the sole purpose of moving their “gold-medal” flour to the east coast and European markets. 

William’s older brother Israel Jr. had suggested to the Minneapolis mill owners that a far cheaper and quicker route for their flour to market would be through northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, making a connection with the Canadian Pacific at Sault Ste. Marie.  The Soo line obtained its name from the phonetic pronunciation of Sault.  The flour would move on to Montréal where it could branch out to several ports on the East Coast, the closest of which was in Israel Jr.'s state of Maine at Portland.  A quick look at the map of North America confirms this route is more direct and had the added benefit of avoiding the Chicago railroad conglomerates that were bleeding Minneapolis of its wealth. 

Using Canadian and British financing, William was a driving force in pushing the Soo line to completion and served as its first president during construction.  Not satisfied, the fearless William went head-to-head with James J. Hill, Minnesota's dominating rail magnate, by also opening rail lines to the wheat fields west of Minneapolis.  Because of William’s drive and vision, the city of Minneapolis became the greatest milling city in the world as opposed to just a simple thoroughfare for the wheat on its way to Eastern markets.  Using the strength of his success William eventually became a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, the highest office held by any of the Washburn brothers.

Certainly Washburn and his kind had many negative impacts on our region, but no one can dispute that they had a vision for building a great city, which they accomplished.  The nickname of Mill City for Minneapolis is no mistake.  Sometimes environmentalists overlook the need for these hard-driving business promoters to actually make positive change. 

The future of our new green economy needs hard-driving and smart business people like Washburn who not only have a vision for local and clean energy, but have the ability to make it happen.  Like the Minneapolis millers back in 1800s who recognized the importance of what their local power source could do for our community, Minneapolis is fortunate to have a visionary business today that recognizes the value of clean renewable energy in Mortenson Construction.

In 1994, wind energy was the wild dream of a bunch of long-haired hippies.  They had a vision of a clean renewable energy source as an alternative to nuclear power.  It was then that Minnesota passed its first renewable energy goal stemming from of the Prairie Island nuclear waste storage dispute.  The following year Mortenson grasped the significance of this clean energy vision and headed into the uncharted territory of renewable energy construction.  They brought a level of business professionalism and quality second to none.  Since then Mortenson has become the leading constructor of wind power projects in North America, capturing more than 25% of the market.  They have constructed over 10,000 MW of power across United States and Canada, an achievement that would have impressed even the hard-driving Charles Washburn.

Mortensen is one of many companies who see an opportunity to grow jobs and keep our wealth at work right here in our community through clean renewable energy.  Appropriately, Mortensen’s headquarters is in the city built by the Washburns were Mortenson has more than 200 employees in the Minnesota-based Renewable Energy Group.  They have also engaged in the biofuels, solar and hydro markets, as well as building numerous U.S. Green Building Council LEED certified structures.  The one structure Minnesotans can recognize the easiest is the most environmentally friendly major-league baseball park in the nation - the Minnesota Twins’ Target Field.  A field, by the way, that is not too far from the milling district created by the Washburn brothers and their fellow New England entrepreneurs.

To learn more about the new entrepreneurs building a better community for us through clean renewable energy, go to "Real Jobs/Real People, building the clean energy economy" web site.  (Link here).  See how the vision of having clean and independent energy sources is making a difference in our economy and creating jobs locally -- a vision Minnesotans created by passing some of the nation's leading renewable energy and conservation standard over the last decade. 

*Thanks to Kerck Kelsey for the history on William D. Washburn in Prairie Lightning published by Pogo Press, Lakeville, Minnesota, 2010, and also, to my wife Wendy for finding the book hidden away in a bookstore in Duluth, Minnesota.

John Tuma is government relations associate for Conservation Minnesota.

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