The Territorial University has been located at St. Anthony. This is a new town built up within the last two years immediately around the falls. (Burlington Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Thursday, May 22, 1851, Page 2)
There is a Territorial institution located at St. Anthony, called the University of Minnesota. Its government is committed to twelve Regents, chosen by the Legislature, and made a body corporate. The Board of Regents is divided into three classes, and the terms of office are so arranged that four are elected biennially. Congress has given two townships of land (a township is six miles square) to the University, and the proprietors of St. Anthony Falls village donated lots facing the public square for the erection of buildings. Already, a fine three-story building has been erected, and the preparatory department, corresponding to an academy at the East, is in operation, under the charge of an efficient and popular teacher. The University Bill was passed only two years ago, and the school commenced over a year ago. (The National Era, Washington, D. C., Thursday, February 24, 1853, Page 1)
Seventy thousand acres are appropriated to a State University. A fine building has already been erected for the use of that institution. It is situated at St. Anthony, built of stone on an eminence commanding a view of the falls, and no State in the Union has a better foundation for a good system of popular education. (The Saint Cloud Visitor, Thursday, May 20, 1858, Page 2)
Two or three thousand dollars a year judiciously expended would serve to make the University building available for the purposes for which it was designed, and enable the State to realize some benefit from the eighty odd thousand dollars of which is now locked up in these blank walls of useless masonry, and transform this fine edifice from a sepulchral monument of madness and imbecility to a temple of wisdom and learning. (The Saint Paul Daily Press, Friday, December 25, 1863, Page 1)
One mile below the town, on the left bank of the Mississippi, in the centre of a beautiful grove, near an unfailing stream of excellent water, and overlooking the Falls of St. Anthony, the cities of St. Anthony and Minneapolis, and a wide expanse of charming scenery, is a large substantial stone edifice, four stories in height. This is the Minnesota University building. Only a part of structure originally projected has been constructed; the State has, however, appropriated a large tract of pine timbered land which will doubtless ere long be sold, the requisite funds provided, and the buildings completed. It is reported – but on what precise authority I have not been able to ascertain – that an influence has been at work in the Legislature, with the object of bringing about a change in the locality of the University; and it is allowed that this is one of the reasons why the buildings remain unoccupied and unfinished. But, certainly, such cannot be good policy. This location is central, and will soon be accessible by railroads from all points of the compass, while for beauty, salubrity, quiet, and convenience in the matter of markets and churches, it is all that can be desired. (The Saint Paul Press, Thursday, June 29, 1865, Page 2)