Portal:Minnesota/Selected biography/6

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Franklin Steele (1813 – September 9, 1880) was an early and significant settler of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. With encouragement from his future brother-in-law Henry Hastings Sibley, Steele saw opportunities in the western frontier and traveled to Fort Snelling via the steamboat Burlington. At that time, the land on both sides of the Mississippi River at St. Anthony Falls was controlled by the U.S. Government as part of the Fort Snelling Reservation. However by 1837 over 150 squatters had staked unofficial claims on fort property. In 1838, the fort commander, Joseph Plympton convinced the government to release the east bank of the river for settlement, hoping to stake a personal claim on the valuable land closest to the Falls. But Steele surreptitiously staked the first claim on the choicest land before sunrise on the first day of legal settlement. He claimed a half-mile of east-bank riverfront, controlling half of the water power of St. Anthony Falls. For many years river crossing between Minneapolis and St. Anthony was via a rope-drawn ferry, by foot when the river surface was frozen, or on floating log booms that often filled the channel. Although he ran one such ferry, as early as 1852, Steele anticipated a need for a permanent bridge to span the river near present-day Hennepin Avenue. He formed the Mississippi Bridge Company to build a 620-foot (189 m)-long, 17-foot (5 m) wide suspension bridge, linking Minneapolis to Nicollet Island and hired Thomas Griffith to design it. (Full article)