Franklin Steele - Early Success

Early Success

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, arriving June 18, 1838; he soon became a storekeeper at the fort. 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; adjacent property was claimed by Pierre Bottineau (1817–1895), a Métis, of French-Canadian, Ojibwe, and Dakota descent.

Steele's sister, Abbian, would marry a prominent physician, Thomas R. Potts in 1847. Potts would become the first Mayor of St. Paul.