Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/273

 HISTOEY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 217 though Wacoota, commanding, as it does, the head of the lake, was to become a great and important city. Up to 1854 travelers were entertained at the home of Mr. Bullard. The increasing travel and the number of lumbermen who arrived caused a demand for a hotel, and during that year one was erected by J. B. Smith. This hotel was afterward removed to Mt. Pleasant, in Wabasha county, and did service as a residence for the Rev. Mr. Williams. In 1855 Daniel Saunders built another hotel, which in 1864 was removed to the township of Featherstone, where it was converted into a dwelling house for the Rev. Ezra Tucker. These two hotels in 1857 were found to be insufficient for the demand. The village became a headquarters for lumber- men, and at this point were rafted the logs from the pineries further north. So prosperous were the people at this point that they contested" with Red AVing for the location of the county seat, and but for the cleverness of the Red Wing voters, might have got it. Bullard, wishing to get his full share of the money which was pouring into Wacoota, erected a third hotel in the village in 1857. This building was 40x60 feet and furnished in good style. After the tide had turned and the flood of business had gone to other places, Bullard sold this hotel to Messrs. Tibbetts & Hackett, of Lake City, who removed it to that place in the winter on the ice. With the advent of the Civil War more than one-half of the legal voters enlisted. After the war was over the glory of Wacoota had departed; and today it remains not the proud and populous county seat that had been fondly dreamed, but a quiet rural community, whose prosperous farmers do their trading in that city which Wacoota at one time hoped to rival. Wacoota village is now a station on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad. About three-quarters of a mile from the railroad station, after passing through a small grove, one arrives at Vivian Park, at the head of Lake Pepin. Here the waters of the great river expand into a wide and deep basin, which has all the attributes of a great lake, whose waters are still except when stirred by the wind. There, on the high ground over- looking the lake, have been built a number of cottages, where many families go to spend the hot summer months amid the refreshing scenery and bracing breezes. The first birth in Wacoota was in the family of G. W. Bullard. in 1852. The same child died in 1854, this being the first death in the township. The first marriage was that of Joseph F. Thompson and Melissa Pingrey, in 1855, James B. Smith, a justice of the peace, performing the ceremony. In the fall and winter of 1854 J. F. Pingrey taught a school in a ball over a store. Rev. J. AY. Hancock and Matthew Sorin held services as