USA > Minnesota > St Louis County > Duluth > Duluth and St. Louis County, Minnesota; their story and people; an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development, Volume II > Part 12
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The first library was opened in 1907 ; the first librarian was Miss Dunnigan. The City Public Library building, opened in 1912, had as its first librarian Miss Newhard, present librarian is Miss Grace Stevens. In addition, two men's reading rooms are maintained by the library board, on Chestnut street.
Fire Department .- The volunteer company, formed in 1893, was disbanded in 1908, when the city organized a salaried Fire Depart- ment, with A. F. Thayer, chief. A new fire-hall was built at a cost of $16,000 at that time. It was enlarged in 1914. During about fifteen years of its existence, the volunteer company consisted of from twelve to twenty men, and a chief, the firemen receiving $5 a month for their services, and the chief proportionately low.
Court House .- One of the magnificent buildings of Virginia is the District Court House, which was erected in 1910, at a cost of $275,000, and is now to be doubled in capacity, a much needed en- largement.
Virginia was the first city on the range to have a county court house, and it was established, it is believed, mainly through the initi- ative of Judge Bliss, who was then superintendent of the Virginia Public schools. He noted that all juvenile offenders had to be tried in the Juvenile court at Duluth, and the contact that necessarily came between the erring juveniles and older, more hardened, offenders was, he thought, not conducive to improvement of normal conduct of the juveniles. Hle called a public meeting. It was held in the auditorium of Roosevelt school. Virginia, and eventually brought action by the state legislature, with the consequent establishment of the district court houses. Judge Martin Hughes was the first to hold district court in Virginia. He held his first session in the Municipal Court
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room, but in the following year the present Court House building was erected .
Post Office .- Virginia has a very fine Federal building, erected recently, the first on the ranges.
Cemeteries .- There are two beautifully-kept cemeteries, the Greenwood and Calvary, the latter being the Catholic place of burial. They embrace forty acres.
War Record .- Virginia has an enviable and worthy war record. She sent more than fifteen hundred of her young men into the na- tional service when the call came in 1917 and 1918, and many of them made the Supreme Sacrifice. (Reference to their individual records is made in another chapter.) And when the pressure was greatest, the people in the home sector, the residents of Virginia in general, indeed in whole, co-ordinated their efforts in war work. The local Red Cross Chapter had more than 5,000 members, and under the "chairmen" of the various departments, Mesdames West, Kimball, Lerch, Hultquist, Malmberg, Colgrove, and others, accomplished very much. Douglas Greely gave much of his time to the direction of Red Cross work, and Virginia's contributions to the various Liberty Loans aggregated to well over $5,000,000. The issues for welfare service were also liberally subscribed to. It was a period in which Virginia, like most other patriotic communities, strove to outdo its neighbor in national service. That spirit, in the aggregate, brought the over- whelming of the German resistance eventually, and Virginia might well be proud of its record of personal service, during the national period of stress.
Population .- The population of Virginia in September, 1892, was not more than 181. By June, 1893, it is said, the population was about 5,000. The blotting out of the village by fire then reduced the popu- lation, by exodus, very considerably. It had not recovered even by 1900, when the federal census figures credited the city with only 2,962 inhabitants. In 1910, the population had increased to 10,473; and the last census, 1920, disclosed that Virginia then had 14,022 residents.
Its trading, however, is with much larger population, Virginia being the "shopping-centre" of both the Mesabi and Vermilion ranges.
Publicity .- The city is well served by two good daily journals, the "Daily Virginian," and the "Enterprise." The latter is the older paper, having been founded in 1893, before the fire, by F. B. Hand and W. E. Hannaford. The "Enterprise" is the oldest of existing range newspapers, and from the time of the fire, in 1893, until 1908, its quarters were in what became known as "the Tar Paper Shack," which of course it was. The owners lost a printing plant worth about $10,000 in the first fire. A. E. Bickford, city clerk, was on the staff of the "Enterprise" in the early days. The other paper, the "Virginian," dates from May, 1895. It was founded by W'm. R. Mc- Garry, who published the paper for the first four or five months. Since October, 1895, the paper has been owned by the Cuppernull family, David E. Cuppernull, who was "one of the best-known journalists on the range," holding the direction for the greater part of the time. Ransom Metcalfe was at one time part-owner of the paper. The "Virginian," too, lost its plant in one of the big fires of the city, that of 1900. Both newspapers have up-to-date plants today, and are well edited.
Hospitals .- Virginia has five hospitals. The Virginia Hospital, conducted by Dr. C. W. Miller, was established by him in 1893 on
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Wyoming Avenue, and then had accommodations for forty patients. It was a private enterprise. The Lenont Hospital was built in 1903, by Dr. Charles B. Lenont. It was modernly equipped and could ac- commodate thirty patients.
It became necessary for the city to have a "pest-house," or de- tention hospital, soon after the twentieth century came in. The first attempt made was the renting of the "old David Kelly house in block 53," in 1901. A year later, the city bought the house, paying $700 for it, and the rental of $300 for the previous year was taken in part payment. It continued as the "pest-house" until 1909, when the De- tention Hospital was erected on leased land in section 18. The build- ing cost the city $2,495.45, and the furnishing only $357, and the nurse-caretaker, "a man of considerable age, and who wants a home," being paid $2.00 a day when he only occupied the place, and an addi- tional dollar a day when he had patients to nurse and cook for. So that city funds were not extravagantly used for that purpose. As a matter of fact, the public funds of Virginia have been carefully hus- banded one must acknowledge, when comparison is made with use of public funds in other range municipalities. And during the last ad- ministration, Virginia has shown an even greater inclination to "re- trench."
The one great expense is for schools, and, having regard to the bearing education will have upon the Virginia of the next generation, the school authorities are justified in endeavoring to provide the high- est standard of public education possible.
Educational Progress .- The first school has been already re- ferred to. The enrollment was eighteen, and there was one teacher. In the 1919-20 school year the enrollment was 3,653, and there were 148 teachers. The expense incurred in the first term of school did not exceed, probably, $100, whereas the school levy for the purpose of Independent School District No. 22, which is the Virginia district, was $619,839.40 for the year 1919-20. So that the progress made has certainly been substantial.
School District No. 22 was organized on February 1, 1893. The first directors were: John F. Gleason, Neil McInnis and Jared D. Taylor, McInnis being treasurer and Taylor clerk. One early re- view reads :
The district, when first organized and which until 1903, included Eveleth, found it quite difficult to float a loan of $10,000 with which to begin business. Many moneyed men did not have the faith in the Mesabi Range iron prospects that they now have. Many men of wealth, who looked over the country at that time, shook their heads and said that the whole northeastern part of the state was not worth $10,000. Through the faith and efforts of Mr. E. Z. Griggs the district secured the loan of $10,000, and thus struck its natural pace, which has been a lively one up to the present.
As there was difficulty in raising the fund, it seems probable that it was not available before the fire of June, 1893, occurred. After the fire, there was no school until November of 1893, and school was then opened in the Methodist Church, the one brought from Du- luth through the munificence or interest of the Merritt family. It was a trying emergency arrangement for the teachers. Thomas Row- ley, principal, taught in the main building. Miss Mae Gill taught a hundred pupils in the Sunday School room, in the spring of 1894. There were no books or blackboards, and the room was so small that she had to "take the children in half-day sessions." Thomas Rowley was succeeded by George Raymond, while the school was still conducted in the Methodist Church. However, better conditions
SCHOOLS OF VIRGINIA DISTRICT TOP ROW, LEFT TO RIGIIT : ROOSEVELT, CENTRAL, JOHNSON AND HIGGINS SCHOOLS MIDDLE ROW : HOMESTEAD, FRANKLIN AND FARMSTEAD SCHOOLS BOTTOM ROW : PRIMARY SCHOOL
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came eventually, the Central School being built in 1894, at a cost of $14,000. In 1896, another was built, the Franklin, at a cost of $1,500. It was enlarged in 1904, at a cost of $1,000. The Primary building was erected in 1898, and the Homestead in 1903; the former cost $7,000, and the latter only $500. The Homestead School was of logs, and was built in an outlying agricultural section. Finnish farmers constituted that small sub-district, but their children had to be pro- vided with the means of education, and it was quite impossible to transport them to the Virginia schools. There were no roads, and when Judge Bliss, then district superintendent, visited the school, he had to go on horseback, or on a sled. By the way, the first teacherage put into operation on the range was at the Homestead School, the teacher finding it just as difficult to get to and from Vir- ginia as other people, of course, and therefore, having no option but to remain near her school. But that little school ultimately gave a
VIRGINIA TECHINICAL HIGH SCHOOL. (AN IMMENSE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL BUILDING HAS SINCE BEEN BUILT IN REAR, ADJOINING )
good demonstration of the value of the public schools in the Ameri- canizing of the alien population. Nine out of ten of the pupils, prob- ably, spoke only Finnish when they first entered the. log schoolhouse : in eight years, it had a class ready for high school-a class of bright, apt and promising Americans. Judge Bliss, who never took a vaca- tion while he was superintendent, was especially interested in the evolution of the foreign element into citizens of good American spirit, and instituted several unique ways of effecting that purpose through the pupils of the Virginia schools, and by the establishment of night schools. Virginia was the first to start such work on the range.
In 1904 the Roosevelt School building was erected, at a cost of $65,000, and it became the High school. Then came the Johnson and Farmstead schools in 1907, and the Higgins in 1908; the Technical High, Northside and Southside schools, in 1909. A larger school became necessary on the Southside in 1915, and was then built, at a cost of $55,000. An appraisal of the school property of the Virginia district, made in 1914, showed the total valuation of real estate to be $167,200; of buildings, $468,000; of equipment, $89.244; of text
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books, $10,000; of supplies and library, $5,000. The last official ap- praisal, made for the county board of education, school-year 1919-20, showed school property of Independent School District No. 22 to be $1,590,562. That includes the first section of the Technical High School, $250,000, but not all of the expense incurred in constructing the recent additions to that imposing block of school buildings. The enlargements were begun in 1917, and were not completed until 1921. It was estimated that the total cost, when complete, would be about $1,500,000. The Vocational, or Technical High, is a marvel of school architecture, and its scope and efficient direction enable Virginia to maintain its proper place educationally among the wonderful school districts of the Mesabi range. The main Virginia School is so vast in its equipment, scope, departments, and possibilities, that the com- piler of this record would not attempt a detailed description. It could not be properly given in the space he has available. However, it should be recorded that "the master mind of this advanced system of education was P. P. Colgrove," the school superintendent. The architect was Carl E. Nystrom, of Duluth.
In all, there are fourteen schoolhouses in Independent School Dis- trict No. 22, five of brick and nine of wood. The present superin- tendent is E. T. Duffield, a capable educator and an efficient well- paid executive. All salaries are high : the male teachers of the dis- trict during the school-year 1919-20 received an average salary of $197 a month, and the women teachers $147.
District No. 22 is responsible for public school-work in town- ship 59-17 and part of 58-17. Until 1904, District No. 22 had au- thority over the Eveleth schools also, but it was rather an unsatis- factory arrangement. Virginia, the richer place, and consequently a heavier taxpayer, did not feel that it was getting a proper share of the school levy. There were other reasons also, and in the last years of the undivided district, when J. H. Hearding, a man of strong personality, was school director, Virginians were especially uneasy, believing that Eveleth had a stronger representation on the school board. However, with the organization of Independent School Dis- trict No. 39, and the separation of Eveleth from Virginia, the latter had what she wanted, and with the election of Joseph Roskilly, di- rector, Robert E. Bailie, and Chas. C. Butler clerk, Virginia held full sway over her own schools, and over the whole of her school- levy. Many able men have served on the Virginia school board since that time, but space is not here available to name them. But the Board of Education, in 1920, consisted of: R. J. McGhee, clerk ; W. T. Irwin, treasurer: C. R. Johnson, chairman ; A. E. Mckenzie, H. A. Ebmer and A. Hawkinson, directors; E. T. Duffield, super- intendent.
The superintendents from the beginning have been: Thomas Rowley, 1893-94: George Raymond, 1894; Bert N. Wheeler, 1894-98; William Park, 1898-1901; S. W. Gilpin, 1901-04: Lafayette Bliss, 1904-1914: P. P. Colgrove, 1914-20; E. T. Duffield, 1920.
The Virginia school system is in keeping with its buildings, which probably, as a group, cannot be excelled by those of any other place of like size in the country, off the Mesabi range. Hibbing has a more expensive high school building, it must be admitted, but if one groups the schools of St. Louis County, there is not much doubt that they will favorably compare with those of any county of any state of the Union. The finest educators of the country are attracted to the range schools, which offer far better salaries than universities
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can offer its professors; and, consequently, the standard of education is excellent.
Virginia's Advantages .- Albert E. Bickford tersely described some of the outstanding features of Virginia, in 1920. His summary reads, in part :
The taxable valuation of Virginia * is $17,000,000 * The city has * * 26 miles of cement sidewalks *
* * ; 8,000 hand- planted trees, * about fifty acres of parkland *
* * * * the largest white pine sawmill in the world; the best automobile roads in
* the northwest; *
* * the finest line (trolley) in the states * many dependable iron ore mines; a large farmers' market place; aviation
* ; five hospitals; eighty acres of experimental school farm; the field * *
purest and coldest water in the state
*
* *
; a new and up-to-date deten-
tion hospital; a most improved incinerator plant; an $8,000 band stand * the best band in the state; twelve miles of sanitary sewer, and absolutely the largest sewage disposal plant in the state; four miles of storm sewer
*
*
; four strong banks; two daily papers
; all of the fraternal
* ; one large schools and vocational schools in the United States * the finest grade lodges of modern times; eighteen churches
flour mill; three creameries * ; a splendid class of merchants; four
* * theatres, and a $100,000 opera house railroads * four
* and the Best People on Earth.
Virginia certainly had a definite and conspicuous place in the county and state.
-
*
*
*
CHAPTER XXV THE CIVIL AND SPANISH WARS
Men of St. Louis County have participated in all the wars in which this nation has engaged, i.e., in those of their time. The War of the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War were all before the time of the pioneers of St. Louis County; and while many of the pioneer families of the county were of colonial descent, and in consequence probably contributed to the strength of Washing- ton's forces, it hardly seems possible that any soldier of the Revolu- tion lived within the borders of St. Louis County. Some soldiers of the War of 1812 may have, but they are not of record. It is possi- ble that some of the early settlers were veterans of the Mexican campaign, but of them even there is no authentic record. St. Louis County, as a white settlement, was still in its infancy, and very sparsely populated in the early '60s; nevertheless, to the limit of its strength, it gave of its best to the Federal cause, and shares with Minnesota a glorious Civil war record, men of St. Louis County rally- ing to the first regiment offered to Lincoln-the first in the whole country. That distinction, that unique honor, will be referred to later in this chapter.
When the call to arms came in 1861, only the fringe of St. Louis County had been settled, and the inhabitants of the few little hamlets of the North Shore were denied the partiotic urge that in later wars swept most of the full-blooded and right-minded young men into the military forces. There was no chance of organizing a Duluth battalion in 1861; nor even a company. The patriots of that outpost of civilization who felt the military "urge," who felt a patriotic desire to strike with the federal forces at the section which refused govern- ance by the principles of liberty to all, had to warm their patriotism by stern and long-sustained resolution. They had to depart singly, at their own expense, and in some cases go long distances before they could reach the place where they could enlist. And then, to an extent, they were among strangers. The young men of later wars had a different experience; they rallied in their home town to the colors; they had their schoolmates as comrades; and they left their home town cheered by the handgrips of friends, and the expressions of love and admiration from their own relatives. It was different in 1861. For instance, consider the case of Robert Emmit Jefferson. He had married in 1859, and, says Carey :
After the breaking out of the Civil war, Mr. Jefferson and his wife and baby girl left Duluth for his old home in St. Anthony Falls, going back by way of the grand portage of the Fond du Lac, up the St. Louis and Savannah rivers, down Prairie and Tamarac rivers into Sandy Lake, and down the Mississippi to St. Anthony. Before starting on their trip Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson stopped with the writer at Oneota, while preparing for the journey. It was considered by all that their journey would be extremely tedious and a dangerous one for Mrs. Jefferson and the baby; yet there did not seem to be any other way for them to get out of the country. In that year, while there were not many people at the Head of the Lakes, those that remained had very little left after the year of the panic (1857). There was no money in the country, nor any employment that could afford a living. It was one of those "fish and potato" years, when the people had to resort, in part at least, to the Indian style of living. Mr. Jefferson was without money and therefore could not go around by lake, nor could he pay $35 fare for stage by way of the military road to St. Paul.
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He was not so well prepared for the trip as Duluth was 200 years before, yet he concluded to face the perils. * * * After a perilous * *
* trip he reached his old home.
Jefferson enlisted, and within a year had given up his life, his wife dying soon afterwards. However, the little girl, who by the way was the first white child born within the original village of Duluth, lived to reach maturity and a happy marital state. Yet, their parents entered upon their patriotic purpose in '61 with a firm resolution and devotion to country. Many others left Duluth and the Head of the Lakes in much the same unostentatious way during the dark years of the early '60s. No draft was demanded of Duluth until the war was far spent, and then it was disclosed that Duluth had practically fulfilled her moral liability by the call of the heart. Her sons had already gone into the thick of the struggle, fearlessly and by their own election ; they had volunteered, many of them in the first year.
Doras Martin's case is another instance of grim determination to fight for his country, no matter what obstacles came to prevent it. He was well over sixty years old, had no money, but he borrowed $25 to go to St. Paul to enlist. There he was rejected, his gray hair and whiskers belieing his statement of age. But he dyed his hair, and crossed into Wisconsin, where he was admitted into the 30th Wis- consin Regiment as a man of forty years. He served until June 15, 1865, then being discharged at Louisville, Kentucky, for physical disability.
He returned to Duluth, proud of his military record, and proud of his uniform, as every war veteran has a right to be. So proud indeed of it that he had resolved to die in the national uniform. And as he was then "nearing seventy years," and had many pre- monitions of death, he was wont, it is said, to dress often in his regimentals. One morning, in 1867, he was found motionless, seated in his chair near the open door of his cottage, in full uniform, even to his hat. He was dead. But the sturdy old patriot, quadroon though he was supposed to be, was reverently given the last rites of a soldier of the nation. Dressed in "Blue," the uniform of honor, he was given full military honors, and buried in Franklin Square, Minne- sota Point. Later his body was removed to the Soldiers' Rest, in Forest Hill Cemetery, his grave being No. 7, of Tier No. 1.
Judge Carey writes as follows regarding the part taken by St. Louis County in the Civil war :
In 1861, when the southern states rebelled, and the Civil war in all of its sad and sorrowful features had become an accomplished fact, the Head of the Lakes had not recovered from the (money) panic and depression of 1857. During the summer of 1861, many of those that yet remained departed, some with the patriotic spirit to enlist in the Union army, some went to St. Paul, others to their homes in other states, and others to their old homes in Canada (not being citizens).
In 1860 the total population of St. Louis County was given as 406.
In 1862, the total enrollment of ablebodied men in St. Louis County subject to draft was only 46. *
* * This shows a remarkable thinning out in two years. There was no call for a draft of recruits for the army until 1864; in that year there were three calls-on February 1, March 14 and July 2. There were required from St. Louis County under the three calls a total of 23, and a total credit of 21, as furnished up to October 31, 1864. * *
* Sixteen were volunteers, and five received bounties of public money voted by the county commissioners. During the six months in which those draft calls were made active steps were taken by interested citizens through the adjutant- general of the state and all other available sources, to obtain credit for all the volunteers from St. Louis County that had been enlisted since the beginning of the war, whether they enlisted in Minnesota, or in any other state; and in
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this way the credit of sixteen volunteers was obtained up to the last call of President Lincoln, in July, 1864, for 500,000 more men; then St. Louis County lacked seven more men to fill her quota.
On September 12, 1864, an appropriation of $1,500 was made by the board of county commissioners for bounties for volunteers, and at the same session a levy of 8 mills on the dollar was made on the property of the county, to make good that amount.
A few individuals that were anxious to avoid draft raised some "green- backs," which they contributed to the county fund. This bounty had the effect of inducing five more men to enlist before October 31.
Judge Carey could not recall the names of many of the sixteen volunteers, but remembered that among them were: Col. J. B. Culver, Freeman Keene, John G. Rakowsky, Julius Gogarn, Robert P. Miller, William C. Bailey, and Alonzo Wilson, also of course Robert E. Jefferson. The names of the other pioneer residents of St. Louis County who served will probably be found included in the roster painstakingly prepared for this compilation by the late Asa Dailey, of Duluth.
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