and the Minnesotian had the satisfaction of getting out an extra some
little time before their competitors.

* * * * *

In the summer season the newspapers had to rely, to a considerable
extent, on the steamboats for late Dubuque and Chicago papers for
telegraph news. There were three or four daily lines of steamers to
St. Paul, and every one of them could be distinguished by its whistle.
When it was time for the arrival of the boat bringing the newspapers
from which the different papers expected to get their telegraphic
news, messengers from the different offices would be at the levee, and
as the boat neared the shore they would leap for the gangplank, and
there was always a scramble to get to the clerk's office first.
James J. Hill and the late Gus Borup were almost always at the levee
awaiting the arrival of the steamers, but as they were after copies
of the boats' manifest they did not come in competition with the
adventurous kids from the newspaper offices.

* * * * *

The Minnesotian was probably the first daily paper in the West to
illustrate a local feature. During the summer of 1859 a man by the
name of Jackson was lynched by a mob in Wright county, and Gov. Sibley
called out the Pioneer Guards to proceed to the place where the
lynching occurred and arrest all persons connected with the tragedy.
The Pioneer Guards was the crack military company of the state, and
the only service any of its members ever expected to do was in the
ballroom or to participate in a Fourth of July parade. When they were
called out by the governor there was great consternation in the ranks.