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 30
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
He has been prominent on the Duluth Board of Trade, serving as director eight years, vice president two years and president two years, and now represents the Duluth Board as counsellor of the United States Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Jenks is a member of the Commercial Club, Kitchi Gammi Club, Curling Club and Boat Club, and is a Republican in politics.
December 7, 1892. while living at Findlay, Ohio, he married Miss Lin- nie Edgar, of Sidney, Ohio. Her father at the outbreak of the Civil war, being unable to enlist in his home county on account of his age, went to another county and became the youngest member of his regiment and served throughout the period of hostilities. Mr. and Mrs. Jenks have two daughters, Hester Anna, born in 1894, and Edna Messer, born in 1898. Both are graduates of the Duluth Central High School and spent two years finishing their educations at the National Park Seminary at Washington, D. C.
WILLIAM ALBERT McGONAGLE. The work of William Albert Mc- Gonagle as a railroad builder and engineer and operating official has con- stituted a real and vital service to the upbuilding of one of the chief re-
743
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
sources of Duluth, its transportation system. It is doubtful if any man now living has a broader or more authoritative technical knowledge of the problems of railroad transportation in the Duluth district.
Mr. McGonagle, who for the past ten years has been president of the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Railway Company, was born at Consho- hocken, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, March 28, 1861, a son of Joseph and Agnes (McKeeman) McGonagle. His father was born at Pottsville, and his mother at Norristown, Pennsylvania. His father was for many years a merchant at Conshohocken, where he died. William A. McGonagle was one of a family of two sons and four daughters. Three of the daughters are now deceased. He was educated in the public schools of Conshohocken, graduating from high school in 1876. The following year he entered the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1881 with the degree Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. For a few months he was a draftsman in private engineering work at Atlantic City, New Jersey, but in July, 1881, he arrived in Minnesota, the state destined to be his permanent field and the scene of his best achievements not only as an engineer but as a citizen. His first employment in this state was as draftsman at Brainerd with the Northern Pacific Railway Company, and shortly afterward as a transit man with the party engaged in locat- ing the Little Falls and Dakota branch of that railway. In the fall of 1882 Mr. McGonagle entered the service of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad Company as assistant engineer. He was successively promoted to resident engineer, superintendent of bridges and buildings, and as- sistant chief engineer, an office he held until 1902. In the latter year he became assistant to the president of the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Railway Company, was made vice president in 1903. and since March, 1909, has been president. While with the Duluth & Iron Range road he had charge of the maintenance of way and especially of ore dock con- struction and the construction of the terminals at Two Harbors, Min- nesota, and the relocation of the line between Two Harbors and Cloquet River.
While his best years have been devoted to the problems of railroad- ing and transportation, Mr. McGonagle was also a factor in the organ- ization of the Duluth Crushed Stone Company, one of the important local industries of Duluth. He has given his influence, study and time to many public movements. He is a former president of the Duluth Commercial Club, a former chairman of its Public Affairs Committee, and was chair- man of the Relief Committee in the forest fires at Beaudette and Spooner. Minnesota, in October, 1910. while by appointment of the Governor he again became chairman of the Minnesota Forest Fires Relief Commis- sion and took active charge of the relief work during the forest fires of October, 1918. In the late war he was first chairman of the Duluth Chap- ter of the American Red Cross, and held that office until the close of the war, when he resigned on account of ill health. He is a Republican, but has never sought nor held political offices. Mr. McGonagle is also a former president of the Kitchi Gammi Club. is a life member of the Du- luth Boat Club, a member of the Northland Country Club, the Minnesota Club of St. Paul, the New York Railroad Club of New York, and the Gitchi Nadii Club of Superior. Wisconsin. His favorite recreation is golf. and he is also a great traveler, having lived in practically every section of the United States.
Mr. McGonagle is one of the most prominent Masons of northern Minnesota, having attained the supreme thirty-third degree in the Scot- tish Rite. He is a past master of Palestine Lodge No. 79. A. F. and A. M., past high priest of Keystone Chapter No. 20. R. A. M., past com-
744
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
mander of Duluth Commandery No. 18, K. T., is a past grand master of the Grand Lodge, A. F. and A. M. of Minnesota, a past sovereign of St. George's Conclave, Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine, and a mem- ber of all the Scottish Rite bodies in Duluth and the Aad Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
October 5, 1887, Mr. McGonagle married Miss Sarah L. Sargent, daughter of Samuel G. and Sarah E. Sargent, of Methuen, Massachusetts. Mr. and Mrs. McGonagle have had three sons and one daughter : Joseph Sargent, Robert Emerson, Mary and William Albert, Jr. Their oldest son attended the Duluth High School, Dartmouth College, took the short course in agriculture at the University of Wisconsin, and is now man- aging a large farm at Hamilton, Montana, and is president of the Cham- ber of Commerce of that town. The son, Robert, also attended the Du- luth High School and the University of Pennsylvania, and during the World War volunteered with the forces of Canada and served two years in France and Belgium, where he was wounded and gassed. He is now in business in Duluth, president of the Duluth Double Wall Construc- tion Company. The daughter, Mary, is a graduate of the Duluth High School and graduated with the class of 1919 from Mount Holyoke Col- lege at South Hadley, Massachusetts. The youngest son graduated from High School, class of 1920, attended Dartmouth College and died Sep- tember 13, 1920.
WALTER M. EVERED is president of the National Iron Company of Duluth, one of the largest industries in the city and one that furnishes a large volume of the iron and steel finished products that are shipped out of Duluth every year.
The Evereds as a family have been distinguished for mechanical skill through several generations. The grandfather of Walter Evered was Joseph Evered, who came from England and settled at Rochester, New York, where for a number of years he owned and operated a flour mill and feed shop. His son was the late Joshua D. Evered, a pioneer in the iron industry of Duluth and long one of that city's most substantial citi- zens. He was born at Rochester, New York, July 16, 1845, and at the age of ten years was left an orphan and had to make his own way in the world. He inherited a taste for mechanics, and all his life was a student of machinery, an inventor of many devices and improvements, including some changes that perfected the threshing machine. He was also a good business manager. For a number of years he had his home at Dayton, Ohio, and in 1882 brought his family to Duluth. He became one of the organizers of the Northwestern Iron Company, which is 1884 was merged into the National Iron Works. In 1896 this business was taken over by the firm of J. Evered & Son, and in May, 1897, the National Iron Com- pany was incorporated by Joshua D. Evered, Walter M. Evered and Harry R. Armstrong. Joshua Evered remained as president of the com- pany until his death. on May 29, 1903, and was then succeeded by his son, Walter, as president. Harry R. Armstrong continues as secretary of the company. Joshua Evered was completely devoted to his business and family. He was a member of the Episcopal Church, belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was a Republican. In 1866, at Detroit, Michigan, he married Anna Rose. a native of Ontario, Canada. and daughter of John and Mary Ann ( Allen) Rose, her father having been a shipowner.
Walter M. Evered, only son of his father, was born at Dayton, Ohio, attended the grammar and high schools of his native city and of Duluth. and was fifteen years of age when he came to the Zenith City. Even as
Joshua Evered
745
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
a boy he worked in his father's manufacturing plant, and mastered all the technical details of iron and steel working. For over thirty years therefore he has been closely identified with the growth and develop- ment of the National Iron Company.
This industry involves a large plant in West Duluth, and its facilities have been especially adapted for the manufacture of machinery and structural iron. It was originally started in a small way, chiefly for re- pairing of marine and saw mill machinery. As the timber began to dis- appear and the smaller boats were replaced by larger ones a readaptation had to be made in the growing business. The owners at that time deter- mined to make the plant especially equipped for the manufacture of special machinery. The shop located during the first few years at the head of Garfield avenue became too small to take care of the growing burdens placed upon it, and in 1902 the company sought larger quarters and took over the works formerly built by the Iron Bay Company. The present plant occupies nearly six acres of ground and is fully equipped with modern machinery and appliances for all the work. A large and prominent feature of the business today is the building of hoisting ma- chinery for builders and contractors and for mines, also machinery for underground mining, tunneling and prospecting. The company manu- factures machinery to be driven with steam, electric, motor, or internal combustion engines. The company are also jobbers as well as manu- facturers, using large quantities of structural steel, merchant bars and billets, and a large part of the factory force is busy the year around, fabricating steel for bridges, buildings and steel construction work. As foundrymen the National Iron Company has facilities for making all kinds of grey iron castings, some of them weighing as high as thirty tons apiece. It is an industry obviously contributing a great deal of prosperity to Duluth since between 175 and 200 men are employed the year around, and many of them are experts in their line. The output of the plant is shipped all over the northwest and portions of Canada. Walter M. Evered has the distinction of having been the first member of the school board who was a former pupil of the Duluth schools. He is active in the Duluth Commercial Club, is affiliated with Palestine Lodge No. 79, A. F. and A. M., Keystone Chapter No. 20, R. A. M., Duluth Commandery No. 18, K. T., is a Scottish Rite Mason and Mystic Shriner. He also belongs to the Elks and is a member of the Episcopal Church. In 1892 he married Miss Eleanor Keene. They have one daughter, Helen.
A. L. HENRICKSEN, the oldest firm of manufacturing jewelers in Northern Minnesota is A. L. and N. J. Henricksen, who have been ac- tively associated for many years, while the name Henricksen has been established in Duluth for over thirty years.
N. J. Henricksen came to Duluth in 1887. A. L. Henricksen was born in Norway, July 30, 1866, and came to this country in 1904, joining his brother and establishing the partnership of A. L. and N. J. Henricksen in the manufacture of fine jewelry and as dealers in diamonds and other precious stones. For many years the location of the Henricksen jewelry house was 332 West Superior street, but the firm is now located on West First street. This was the first establishment to install machinery for the cutting and polishing of the precious and semi-precious stones found in the northern country, particularly on the banks of Lake Su- perior, including the beautiful agates, amethysts and other stones that are given the full value of their attractiveness in handsome settings made by the Henricksen brothers. The cutting and polishing and set-
746
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
ting of these stones is a large business in itself, and has brought a large trade to Henricksen Brothers from the tourist population that throngs Duluth in the summer. A large section of their store is also devoted to dealing in the curios found in Northern Minnesota.
A. L. Henricksen has always taken a great pride in his home city. He is a member of the Commercial Club, the American Sons of Nor- way, and he and his brother promoted a company for the manufacture of puncture proof tires for automobiles. This company now operates a large factory at Newcastle, Indiana.
A. L. Henricksen has always taken a great pride in his home city. has five children, all living, namely : Sigurd, John, Erling, Signy and Herald.
THOMAS KILEEN. The great lumber industry so long centered at Duluth has recruited to this city and to the work some of the choicest spirits of the great northern woods. One of them is Thomas Kileen, who practically grew up in the atmosphere of logging camps in Wiscon- sin, and who is now head of the firm, Thomas Kileen & Company, log- gers and contractors, operating a large organization of men and facilities in the lumber woods of the northwest, while Mr. Kileen personally is owner of and associated with the ownership of great tracts of cut-over timberland in the northern district.
He was born in Wisconsin October 14, 1861. His parents are now deceased. His father who died in 1907, at the age of seventy-four, was a substantial Wisconsin farmer, a good citizen, enjoying the confidence of the entire community, and had a family of ten children, five of whom are still living.
Third among these children, Thomas Kileen acquired his early education in the country schools of the Badger state. At the age of eighteen he left home and went to work in the pine woods and logging camps and soon developed special skill and proficiency in all phases of work, including the dangerous art of driving logs down the rivers. At the age of twenty-three he had advanced so far as to begin taking con- tracts for getting out logs and operating drives, and soon afterward he established his headquarters at Duluth. Recognized as an expert logger and timber man, he has commanded the confidence of woodmen, and has kept together one of the most efficient organizations for work in this line. His employes have at times aggregated as many as five hun- dred, and in different years he has got out and sent to the mills between twenty-five and thirty-five million feet of logs. Incidental to his business as a logger he has handled the sale of cut-over timber lands. He has owned and still owns large sections of former timber land both in Wis- consin and Minnesota, and some of his principal holdings were in Doug- las county, Wisconsin, land that has been sold and developed largely through his organizations, and much of it now constitutes valuable farms. Mr. Kileen is also extensively interested in mining operations on the Mesaba Range.
He is an independent voter and a member of the Knights of Columbus. In 1896 he married Miss Katie Finnigan. They have two children, Edward, born October 10, 1899, and Morine, born May 1, 1901. The son Edward finished his education in the University of Wisconsin, and since leaving university has been associated with his father in the logging and farm business.
W. H. Cook. The Cook family have been residents of Duluth thirty years, and during that time W. H. Cook and in former years his father
747
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
had a prominent work and service to perform as engineers and as lumber operators, and W. H. Cook in recent years has been a lumberman with interests extending from the Pacific northwest to the Atlantic southeast.
WV. H. Cook was born in Kent county, Michigan, September 8, 1867, son of Merritt S. and Ella M. (Reynolds). Cook, the former a native of New York state. The father died in 1911 and the mother in 1914. Merritt Cook spent the greater part of his life as a civil engineer and surveyor. Coming to Duluth in 1892, he followed his profession until his death. He possessed a decided mathematical turn of mind, and while employed in a very practical profession he found his chief delight in the theoretical side of mathematics. For a number of years he was professor of mathematics in Albion College in Michigan. In his family were six children, four still living, W. H. Cook being the second in age.
As a boy he attended the common schools of Michigan, and acquired an expert knowledge of the timber and lumber industry, still an important line of business in his native state during his youth. He became a skillful timber cruiser, and was employed in that capacity in several states of the Union. He first came to Duluth in 1891, and was interested as a timber dealer and lumber operator in a number of sections in north Minnesota. He also extended his operations to the Pacific Coast, Mr. Cook and associates built a line of railway from Virginia, Minnesota, to Fort Francis in Ontario. He began manufacturing lumber in Virginia, Minnesota, in 1903, also was one of the organizers of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, with mills at Duluth and Virginia, and in 1911 organized the Trout Lake Lumber Company, manufacturing lumber at Tower, Minnesota. This industry he continued until 1918. About 1912 he extended his interests as a lumberman and timber owner to South Carolina, where his business was carried on with headquarters at Green- ville. He is still interested in the lumber operations of that state. Mr. Cook is a Republican in politics.
December 31, 1888, in Michigan, he married Miss Martha L. Walsh. Mrs. Cook for a number of years has taken a very prominent part in charitable and social affairs in Duluth, and was one of the leaders in local Red Cross work during the war. They have one son, Ellis R., who attended the Duluth High School and Dartmouth College and is now engaged in the lumber business.
ERNEST A. SCHULZE has a business experience that has been con- tinuously identified with Duluth for thirty years or more. His original trade was that of a tanner, and he has been in the leather business continuously and is now president and manager of the Schulze Leather & Findings Company, one of the leading wholesale houses of the kind in the northwest.
Mr. Schulze was born at Hancock, Michigan, April 6, 1866, a son of Gustav A. and Wilhelmina (Hohle) Schulze. His father was a native of Prussia and his mother of southern Germany. On coming to America Gustav A. Schulze, who was a carpenter and shipwright by trade, located at Chicago, later moved to Hancock, Michigan, and from there went to old Superior, where he engaged in the furniture business. As a mill- wright in the employ of Wieland Brothers he left Superior and went to Beaver Bay, Minnesota, to look after the saw mill of the firm at that point. Later he was elected to the office of auditor of Lake county, and when the county seat was moved to Two Harbors he and his family went along. While there he was county auditor and later county treas- urer, subsequently was appointed postmaster of Two Harbors, and at the conclusion of his term in the postoffice moved with his family to Duluth,
748
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
where he lived a retired life until his death. He was, the father of ten children, eight of whom reached mature years and seven are living.
Ernest A. Schulze, next to the oldest of the living children, acquired his early education in the public schools of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and left school to become an apprentice to the tanner's trade at the age of sixteen. He was an apprentice three years, and gained a thorough knowledge of all that constitutes the tanning industry. Fol- lowing that for one year he was employed as a clerk in the Wieland shoe store, and then after a course in business college at St. Paul returned to Duluth in 1888 and with his brother Charles, engaged in the leather business under the firm name of Schulze Brothers. Later they incor- porated as the Schulze Brothers Company, and the business was con- tinued under this title until 1915. Since then Mr. Schulze has been the active head of the Schulze Leather & Findings Company, a wholesale establishment at 10 West First street.
Mr. Schulze has been devoted to business, has never sought the honors of politics nor its cares and responsibilities, is a Republican voter and an active member of the Pilgrim Congregational Church. In June, 1896, he married Miss Emma Kohagen, daughter of Frederick Kohagen, of Duluth and of German ancestry. Mrs. Schulze was educated in the public schools of Pennsylvania and of Duluth. They have three children : Dorothy, born in 1903 ; Clarence, born in 1907 ; and Eleanor, born in 1911.
MARSHALL-WELLS COMPANY. The history of the Marshall-Wells Company has a place of importance in this publication because it fre- quently throws significant light upon the history of Duluth itself and involves in a peculiarly interesting manner the fortunes and careers of a number of prominent local business men, chief among them being the veteran founder of the business, Albert Morley Marshall.
In 1882, when Duluth had less than 5,000 population and was only a small and unimproved town around a lake port, with the lumbering industry behind, a retail hardware business under the name G. C. Greenwood & Company was established in the depot corner of Supe- rior street. About two years later the first iron ore was shipped from the Vermillion Range, and with the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad Duluth grew so rapidly that it became a city of 18,000 popu- lation. Needing larger capital for his business, Mr. Greenwood inter- ested his uncle, A. B. Chapin, a Saginaw lumberman, and in 1886 the firm was changed to A. B. Chapin & Company, with Mr. Chapin in personal charge. A three-story frame building was erected on South Lake avenue that year. Another important firm of Duluth at that time was Wells-Stone & Company, wholesale grocers and hardware men, who soon afterward merged the hardware department with that of A. B. Chapin & Company, resulting in the Chapin-Wells Hardware Company. In 1891 this firm moved into a new six-story and base- ment brick building on lower Fifth avenue, West, which was the home of the company for nine years. In 1892, when it became appar- ent that large additions of capital were necessary, there occurred the great crisis in the business. This was due partly to the industrial depression which culminated the following year, and also to the fact that some of those interested in the Chapin-Wells organization were desirous of withdrawing. At that time negotiations were entered with Albert M. Marshall of Saginaw, Michigan.
Albert Morley Marshall was born December 25, 1851. His father, Seth Marshall, was born near Hartford in Colebrook, Connecticut, but spent his active life at Painesville, Ohio, where he was a hardware
In marshall
749
DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
merchant, president of the First National Bank and otherwise exten- sively interested in northern Ohio business. His fifth child was Albert M. Marshall, who grew up and was educated in the schools of Painesville. At the age of nineteen he went to Saginaw and entered the shipping room of Morley Brothers, hardware merchants. For twenty-two years he remained with that firm, and when he left was vice president and general manager and had demonstrated the faculty of gathering about him and infusing his personal influence through a splendid organization. He was also president of the U. S. Graphite Company and the Lufkin Rule Company, which he had started at Cleveland and later moved to Saginaw.
In the face of conditions that prevailed in 1893 it is possible to credit Mr. Marshall with nothing less than extraordinary vision and courage in surrendering his attractive and promising interests in Michigan and elsewhere and taking hold of a proposition at Duluth that promised a constant battle as a precedent for growth and success. In the spring of 1893 he acquired the controlling interest in the Chapin-Wells Hardware Company, the name being changed to the Marshall-Wells Hardware Company. The chief owner of the Wells interests, C. W. Wells, was drowned the same fall while duck hunting, and his partner, F. C. Stone, died three months later. Their estates were represented in the Marshall-Wells directorate for some years. Mr. Marshall in the meantime was left to fight out the battle almost alone. With the beginning of the panic of 1893 there was a general shut down of mines, lumber operations, railway extension, but he per- sisted in maintaining his business organization and even added to his force of salesmen, soliciting business all over the northwestern country. The wisdom of this step was proved several years later, when with the gradual lifting of panic conditions it was found that the Marshall-Wells Company had become securely entrenched in all the northern and northwestern states and even in Canada and Alaska. In the midst of trying conditions in 1894 Mr. Marshall began the preparation of a complete catalogue that would represent every article carried in stock, and at that time the "Zenith" trade mark was adopted, which for a quarter of a century has been the guarantee of quality on all goods distributed by this firm.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.