Polk county contains 700,000 acres of land, well diversified with timber and prairie, uplands and valleys, rivers and lakes, and fertile enough to sustain a large population. The county was established by the Wisconsin legislature in 1853, and originally included much more territory than it now contains, new counties having been formed north and east of its present domain. Indian traders had visited it at an earlier period, but the first permanent white settlement was made in 1837, and the first pioneer who came with the serious intention of making permanent improvements was Franklin Steele. As Mr. Steele's history is in a great part the history of the early settlement, we insert it here, and very nearly in the language of Mr. Steele himself, as he communicated it to the writer some years since: "I came to the Northwest in 1837, a young man, healthy and ambitious, to dare the perils of an almost unexplored region, inhabited by savages. I sought Fort Snelling (which was at that time an active United States fort) as a point from which to start. In September, 1837, immediately after the treaty was made ceding the St. Croix valley to the government, accompanied by Dr. Fitch, of Bloomington, Iowa, we started from Fort Snelling in a bark canoe, also a scow loaded with tools, supplies and laborers, descended the Mississippi river and ascended the St. Croix to the Dalles. We clambered over the rocks to the Falls, where we made two land claims, covering the Falls on the east side and the approach to it in the Dalles. We built a log cabin at the Falls, where the Upper Copper trap range crosses the river and where the old mill was afterward erected. A second log house we built in the ravine at the head of navigation. Whilst building, four other parties arrived to make claim to this power. I found the veritable Joe Brown on the west side of the St. Croix, trading with the Indians, a few rods from where Baker & Taylor built their mill (near the end of the present toll bridge). Brown had also cut pine logs, part of which, in 1838, were used by Baker & Taylor, but most of them were burned by forest fires on the ground where they were felled. In February, 1838, I made a trip to the Falls with a dog team for the relief of one Boyce, who was cutting logs at the mouth of Snake river, and had had some trouble with the Indians. I helped him until he left the country. Peshick, a chief of the Chippewas, said, 'We have no money for logs; we have no money for land. Logs can not go.' He said he could not control his young men and would not be responsible for their acts.