Wisconsin v. Duluth
| Citation | 24 L.Ed. 668,96 U.S. 379 |
| Parties | WISCONSIN v. DULUTH |
| Decision Date | 01 October 1877 |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. I. C. Sloan and Mr. James B. Beck for the complainant.
Mr. C. K. Davis, contra.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a bill in chancery, filed in this court by the State of Wisconsin, by virtue of the constitutional provision which confers upon the court jurisdiction of suits between the States and between a State and citizens of other States. To the bill as originally brought the city of Duluth, as a corporation of the State of Minnesota, and, therefore, a citizen of that State, and the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, a corporation organized under an act of Congress, were made defendants. Whether the jurisdiction of the court could have been sustained in regard to the latter corporation, it is not necessary to inquire; for the plaintiff, before the final hearing, dismissed the bill as to the railroad company: and we are now, after answer, replication, and a large amount of evidence, to render our decree as between the State of Wisconsin and the city of Duluth.
This city is situated on the northern shore of Lake Superior, near its western extremity; and about seven or eight miles south-east of it, on the Wisconsin shore, is Superior City. A narrow strip of land, varying from three to eight hundred feet in width, projects itself from the shore at Duluth into the waters of the lake about seven miles, terminating just opposite Superior City, and opposite another point coming from the Wisconsin shore. The strip of land first mentioned is a part of the State of Minnesota, and is called Minnesota Point. West of Minnesota Point is a body of water lying parallel to it, and averaging a mile and a half or two miles in width, called Superior Bay, and still west of that a similar body, called St. Louis
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Bay. Into this latter empties the St. Louis River, draining a large area of country west of the lake, and discharging the water thus collected into the lake.
St. Louis Bay and Superior Bay are spoken of as parts of St. Louis River, as enlargements of that stream; and testimony is taken to show that the water does not flow from the lake east of Minnesota Point into these bays, and other testimony to show that it does. Whether these bays are considered as parts of Lake Superior, or as mere expansions of the river, is in our view immaterial; for it is a fact not denied that there is a current due to the river through both these bays, which, in the natural condition of the points of land we have mentioned, discharged itself into the main body of the lake at the southern end of Minnesota Point; and that this point was the natural entrance and exist of vessels from the lake into the bays, and from the bays into the lake. And previous to the act of the city of Duluth, presently to be mentioned as the foundation of this suit, it was the only passage for vessels into and out of the bay. There was here in this bay a natural harbor where vessels could anchor in safety, and it was the only one on Lake Superior within fifty or sixty miles of its western limit. Here grew up Superior City, at which all vessels landed which came by the great lake system so far west. Outside of the bay and east of Minnesota Point the lake was rough, and there was no protection for vessels from the winds and waves.
The passage or channel at this narrow entrance, which by complainant is called the mouth of the St. Louis River, was never very deep, and the bar, if it may be so called, gave great trouble on this account. For several years prior to 1871, the United States had made appropriations to remedy this difficulty; and a plan had been adopted and money expended in the construction of piers on each side of the channel, which, by confining the flow of the water within narrow limits, would, by the process of scouring, keep the channel from filling up, and it was hoped would also deepen it.
By the spring of 1871, the city of Duluth, stimulated by the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad westward from that city, which was its terminus on the lake, began to feel the need of a safe harbor of its own. A breakwater or pier built
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into the lake was started by an appropriation by Congress, but was found to be unsatisfactory. The city of Duluth conceived and executed in a very short time the project of a canal across the narrow neck of Minnesota Point, near its connection with the main shore. By this means, vessels could enter Superior Bay, where it washed the shores of Duluth, as well as by the channel which let them into the same bay at Superior City. The railroad company and the city expended large sums of money to dredge out and make this harbor fit for the purposes of the large commerce which was expected to be brought there by the railroad. The canal across Minnesota Point was made about two hundred and fifty feet wide and from fifteen to eighteen feet deep; while the greatest depth at the mouth of the St. Louis River was ten and twelve feet.
The citizens of Superior City began to resist this action of the people of Duluth and the railroad company as soon as they comprehended the magnitude of the project. The contest has, from that time to the present, been urged before the State legislatures, before Congress, before the War Department (as having charge of appropriations to be spent in the improvement of navigation at these points), and in the courts, where there have been several suits before the one we are now about to decide.
The present suit was brought by State of Wisconsin, on the ground that the channel of the St. Louis River, as it flowed in a state of nature, was the common boundary between that State and the State of Minnesota, and that she has an interest in the continuance of the channel as an important highway for navigation and commerce in its natural and usual course. That the canal cut by Duluth across Minnesota Point, deeper than the natural outlet of the St. Louis River at its mouth, has diverted, and will continue to divert, the current of that river through Superior Bay into the lake by way of that canal. That the result of this is, that while the current cuts that canal deeper and gives an outlet for the water there at a lower level, it at the same time, by diverting this current from the old outlet, causes it to fill up, and thus destroys the usefulness of the river and bay as an aid of commerce, on which the State had a right to rely. The bill, after reciting the facts which we have already detailed, insists that the city of Duluth cannot, by any right of
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her own nor by any authority conferred on her by the State of Minnesota, thus divert the waters of the stream—the St. Louis River—from their natural course, to the prejudice of the rights of the...
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