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 33
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A. H. Donald was the second in a family of eleven children. He acquired all his education in the schools of Glasgow, Scotland. before coming to this country. He lived at home with his parents for sev- eral years and at the age of nineteen found occupation for one winter in Springfield, Massachusetts, as driver of a street car drawn by a mule. He then returned to Michigan and entered the lumber woods, helping get out logs and also rafting on the river, and every season for eight years spent his time as a practical lumberman. In Onto- nagon county, Michigan, he took up a homestead of eighty acres, proved up his claim, developed a farm from the land and eventually sold out for $2,200, this representing a rather promising capital for that day.
On May 12. 1891, following his farming and lumbering experi- ence in Michigan. Mr. Donald came to Duluth and employed his capital to establish and open a stock of groceries and retail meats,
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a business that he has continued as an important service to the com- munity of West Duluth ever since. His store, a landmark in the commercial district of the West Side, is at 128 Sixty-third avenue. Mr. Donald is a Republican in politics, and is affiliated with the Mod- ern Woodmen of America and the Woodmen of the World. He is also a banker, being vice president of the Western State Bank of West Duluth, an institution that was organized in 1904.
February 28, 1891, a few weeks before he came to Duluth, Mr. Donald married Miss Elizabeth Nyman, a native of Sweden, who came to this country in 1888. They have six children, Roy, Alexan- der, Esther, James, Robert and Bruce.
E. G. WALLINDER. In the business history of Duluth an enterprise that has the distinction of being the oldest in its line in the city is the sash and door factory of E. G. Wallinder. During the thirty years of its existence it has developed and prospered materially under the well-directed management of its proprietor, and with the enterprise has grown also the man, who is now justly accounted one of his com- munity's reliable and public-spirited citizens.
Mr. Wallinder was born in Sweden, November 16, 1864, and as a youth attended the public schools. The engineering profession had been decided upon for him by his parents, but their early deaths put an end to these plans, and after their deaths, on May 1, 1880, when he was not yet sixteen years of age, he came to the United States alone and located first at Burlington, Iowa, where he secured employment in the master mechanic's offices of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. After one year he became a designer for Wolf & Company of Burlington, and in 1882 went to Minneapolis, where he remained six months, during which time he was foreman for the Saint Louis Hotel. During the next year and a half he made his headquarters at Brandon, Manitoba, employed in the work for the engineering department of the C. P. R. R. Leaving there, he went to Fargo, where he superintended the construction of the Fargo High School and the court house and jail in Traill county, North Dakota, which he completed in two years. On July 10, 1886, Mr. Wallinder came to Duluth, and here continued to be engaged in construction work until March 1, 1890, when he founded his present business.
At that time his capital amounted to $400, and his first rough roof sheltered a little group of wood-working machines, operated by four men and driven by a 15-horsepower engine and crowded into a space of 36x40 feet. Today the E. G. Wallinder Sash and Door Factory represents an investment of $85,000, and the main factory, two stories and basement, 70x100 feet, houses two complete machine sets for turning out sash, doors and moulding, about fifty skilled workmen being employed and the plant being driven by an 150-horse- power electric motor and steam plant. The plant occupies two solid blocks, facing on Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth avenues, West. between Nicollet and Main street. The first floor of the main building em- braces in its equipment planers, ripsaws, cut-off saws, jigsaws, tenon- ing and mortising machines, moulders, turning lathes, polishers and other machines common to such a plant. The second floor is taken up by the glueing and veneering rooms and store rooms for finished products, while the glazing room and shafting for the power plant take up the basement. The dry lumber shed, covered by galvanized iron, is 70x180 feet in size, and a shed 18x150 feet on the opposite side of the building covers a complete stock of moulding in both
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hard and soft woods. A fireproof dry kiln, 38x70 feet, is equipped with the latest moist-air drying system, and a fireproof engine room contains a 150-horsepower Atlas engine and two boilers of 170 horse- power combined capacity. Not only is all equipment strictly up to date, but so far as possible it is labor-saving and provided with modern safety devices. A barn and garage, 18x24 feet, shelters the teams and automobile trucks used in transfer and delivery .of local business. A spur of the Northern Pacific Railroad runs between the main building and the dry lumber shed, and raw material is brought in and manufactured products are shipped out in carload lots. The local trade is heavy and a goodly percentage of business is drawn from Upper Michigan, Wisconsin, Southern Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Montana. Of the raw material used to make the finished products which have gained such distinction for this pioneer plant the oak comes from Saint Louis, the yellow pine from Mis- souri, the Douglas fir from Washington, the birch from the same state, and the white pine from Northern Minnesota.
Mr. Wallinder is one who has been the architect of his own for- tune and he has builded wisely and well. Today he is not only at the head of a large, profitable and substantial enterprise, but is highly regarded in the business world as a man of sound integrity, one whose plant has been shut down only eighteen days during the entire period of its existence, and an enterprise that has never missed a payroll. He has always had faith in West Duluth and has manifested his confidence by giving his sound support to its institutions and civic enterprise and by investing his means in its realty. He is a valued member of the local lodges of the Masons, Odd Fellows, Loyal League and Modern Samaritans. Primarily a business man, he is interested in civic matters, in which he is inclined to lean toward progressiveness rather than to passiveness and conservatism. Mr. Wallinder belongs to the Duluth and Commercial clubs, and since 1910 has been president of the Kamloops Copper Company ..
Mrs. Wallinder died in 1912, having been the mother of six chil- dren : William, Arthur, Dan, Esther, Ruth and Vera, of whom Ruth is deceased. William and Dan are associated with their father and Arthur is superintendent of the Kamloops Copper Company in Brit- ish Columbia. Esther and Vera are at home.
J. P. MEISNER, president of the Mesaba Boiler and Manufacturing Company of Duluth, has made evident in his career the value of a useful trade, of making one's energy count toward one thing and of forging steadily ahead regardless of obstacles and discouragements. During the fifteen years that this concern has been in business it has grown steadily under Mr. Meisner's capable direction from a modest enterprise into one of the leading enterprises of its kind at Duluth.
Mr. Meisner was born at Portland, Michigan, April 21, 1883. and received his education in his native locality. When he was sixteen years of age he started to learn the boiler maker's trade, and after he had mastered it worked for a number of years as a journeyman. In 1905 he came to Minnesota and for a short time was engaged in the machinery business, but subsequently turned his attention to the manufacture of all kinds of steam boilers, and in 1905 became the head of the Mesaba Boiler and Manufacturing Company, of which he became president ; R. F. Peterson, secretary, and J. H. Opperman, treasurer. Mr. Meisner brought to his business an extensive experi- ence in the manufacture of steel boilers and in all kinds of structural
Vol. 11-17
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steel work, and his firm now does an extensive business all over the Northwest. The shops and boiler works are located at 212-218 Gar- field avenue, where there is maintained a large force of experts in boiler manufacturing and structural steel work.
Mr. Meisner has a number of civic and social connections and numerous friends in these as well as business circles, where he is known for his integrity, fair-mindedness and sense of justice. He was married at Duluth in 1910 to Miss Smith of Superior, Wisconsin.
H. M. BLACKMARR, president of the F. I. Salter Company of Duluth, is a young business man of wide and varied financial and commer- cial experience, whose associations with Duluth affairs run back over a period of a quarter of a century.
He was born August 4, 1878, and has been a resident of Duluth since 1887. He finished his education in local schools, and as a boy went to work for the National Bank of Commerce as an errand boy. After three years he went with the Commercial Bank of Duluth as assistant cashier, and three years later, at the death of his father, became manager of the Mesaba Bank at Proctor. He later disposed of his interests in that institution and for the eight years following was assistant manager of the insurance rating office, leaving that position to become identified with the F. I. Salter Company. He is a member of Kitchi Gammi Club and the Ridgeview Golf Club.
DAVID J. ERICKSON. His duties as a lawyer. real estate man and legislator have given Mr. Erickson a very busy program of usefulness since coming to Duluth eight years ago. His name has become widely known throughout the state as an able public leader of that type which merits public confidence and esteem.
Mr. Erickson was born at Warren, Pennsylvania. December 3, 1888. son of L. P. and Christine (Anderson) Erickson. His parents were natives of Sweden. and his father came to this country about 1870, locating in Warren county, Pennsylvania. He is still living, at the age of seventy-seven. For many years he was an active farmer and was one of the pioneer settlers of Elk township of Warren county, where many years ago he bought 120 acres of land covered with dense timber. He has developed this farm and for many years his specialty has been dairying, and he made his own example a powerful influence in bringing into the county a good line of cattle and horses. He is a Republican and a member of the Swedish Mission Church. Of his nine children, eight are living, David J. being the youngest.
He attended a country school in Pennsylvania, also the Corydon Grammar School, graduated from the Warren High School in 1908, and in the fall of the same entered Pennsylvania State College, where he was a student in 1908-09. following that with the regular law course of the University of Michigan, where he graduated with the degree LL. B. in 1912.
In November, 1912, a few months after graduating in law, Mr. Erickson came to Duluth and was employed by the law firm of Abbot, Merril & Lewis until August, 1913. | He was admitted to the Michi- gan bar in June, 1912, and in June, 1913, took the Minnesota bar examination and was admitted as a practicing attorney in this state in Tuly. On September 1. 1913, he formed a law partnership with William A. Pittenger, which continued until March 1, 1914, under the firm name Erickson & Pittenger. Since then Mr. Erickson has handled a large general practice alone, with offices in the West End, near Twenty-first avenue, West.
David J. Enckson
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David J. Emichon
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September 21, 1914, Mr. Erickson was one of the incorporators of the Consolidated Realty Company, and has been president from the beginning. This company has been successfully engaged in a general real estate business in the city, to its special credit being assigned the handling of the sale of the Merrit Park Division and the platting of Grant Park Addition to Duluth, which was put on sale Septem- ber 1, 1919. The directors of the company are David J. Erickson, president; C. A. Carlson, vice president and secretary, and H. T. Lundgren, treasurer.
Well established in his profession and in business, Mr. Erickson first became a candidate for an important office when he was elected to the Minnesota Legislature from the Fifty-ninth District in Novem- ber, 1917. He was re-elected for his second term in November, 1919. During the 1917 session he served as a member of the committee on banks and banking, general legislation, military affairs, state normal schools, workmen's compensation, towns and counties. During that session he was interested in increasing the workmen's compensation from fifty to sixty per cent. Another subject that received a large share of his attention was promoting the marketing of farm products in the larger cities and states, and with that in view he was author of the bill providing for a State Department of Foods and Markets. During the 1919 session Mr. Erickson was instrumental in enacting a law providing for a State Department of Agriculture, and also sponsored an amendment of this law authorizing the commissioner of agriculture to establish local markets in municipalities through- out the state. In the session of 1919 he was chairman of the commit- tee on corporations and a member of the committees on education, reconstruction and relief, judiciary, and appropriations. With his col- league, Mr. Bernard, he sponsored the fire relief appropriation in the appropriations committee for the relief of the fire-stricken districts in Northern Minnesota. He was also an influential member during the special session of the legislature called by the governor, September 8, 1919. In that he was also a member of the appropriations com- mittee, which looked after the soldiers' bonus bill, and the bill pro- viding for fire prevention in Northern Minnesota. He was also on the committee on markets and marketing, which drafted the cold storage legislation enacted during the special session. This com- mittee also had charge of carrying out the program of legislation called for in the governor's message in reference to the high cost of living. In the special session Mr. Erickson opposed the enactment of tonnage tax on iron ore, thereby expressing the sentiment of his constituency and also his personal convictions that such a tax is unfair to the iron industry of Northern Minnesota and to the people in general. During this special session Mr. Erickson was author of the bill providing a City Market in the city of Duluth, a bill that passed the house without a dissenting vote, but failed to pass the senate. He was also a member of Mayor Magney's committee to investigate the high cost of living in Duluth.
Fraternally he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and is a member of the West End Commercial Club. June 2. 1917, he married Miss Frances Sykes. Her father was an Englishman, while her mother was born in Minnesota.
M. M. ROBB, superintendent of the Alworth Building, learned the machinist's trade in early life and for the past thirty-five or forty years has enjoyed many responsibilities and has exemplified to a high degree his skillful and responsible service.
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Mr. Robb was born in Monroe county, New York, January 1, 1861. His father, George Robb, was a native of the same state, and died in Amsterdam county, June 13, 1867. The youngest of four children, M. M. Robb was six years of age when his father died, and he had only limited advantages in the public schools of Amsterdam. As soon as possible he began service as an apprentice at the machinist's trade, and after three years became a journeyman and steadily followed his work for a quarter of a century. During that time he was machinist for the Inman Manufacturing Company of Amsterdam. March 8, 1902, he came to Duluth and not long afterward entered the service of M. H. Alworth. He remained until the completion of the Alworth Building, and since then has been superintendent of that notable structure in the business district.
Mr. Robb is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the First Methodist Episcopal Church. He married, December 21, 1882, at Amsterdam, New York, Miss Matie Lepper.
THOMAS CONSIDINE is Duluth's postmaster. He has been in the routine of service in the local postoffice for a number of years, and by experience is eminently qualified for the responsibilities involved in his present official post.
He was born December 12, 1868, at Bay City, Michigan. His father, John A. Considine, was a native of Ireland and came to the United States in 1866, locating at Bay City. Some years later he returned to Ireland, and lived out his life in that country. Thomas Considine was the oldest of six children and was reared and educated in Ireland. In 1890, at the age of twenty-two, he returned to America, lived for a time in New York city, but soon came to Duluth, in 1891, and has thus been identified with Duluth for about thirty years. For three years he was bookkeeper for a street contractor, E. J. Amory, and for about two years was local salesman of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Mr. Considine en- tered the Duluth Postoffice as a clerk in 1895, and has been practically through all the grades of the service. President Wilson appointed him postmaster in May, 1920.
July 31, 1898, at Duluth, he married Miss May Gilbert. They have two children, Aileen and Clare.
CHARLES DECKER is a successful Duluth citizen whose business is a distinctive service to the artistic tastes and refined judgment of the com- munity. He has been in Duluth for a quarter of a century or more, and his art shop is known to every patron of the fine arts in Northern Minnesota.
Mr. Decker was born in Germany, August 10, 1866. He was reared and educated in his native land, and was eighteen years of age when he came to this country in 1884. For five years he worked as a laborer at Detroit, and then started West with a view to finding a suitable location in which to establish himself permanently. He visited all the leading Western cities as far as Seattle. He then returned East to Minneapolis, where he remained a year or so, and in 1895 came to Duluth and began the manufacture of picture frames. He has ever since maintained a shop and organization for the highest class of work in that line, and has also expanded his business to include the dealing in fine art work of all kinds. Mr. Decker takes a great pride in the city of his residence, and is one of the men ever ready with their personal resources and en- thusiasm to advance the welfare of the community. He is a member of the Commercial Club, the Boat Club. the Knights of Columbus, and in politics is independent. January 26, 1885, Mr. Decker married Miss Agnes Frerker, whose people also came from Germany. They are the
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parents of three children. The older son, Theodore L., was educated in the parochial schools of Duluth, in Notre Dame University in Indiana and a business college, and is now associated with his father in the picture frame business. The daughter, Margaret, is a teacher in the public schools. The youngest of the family, Charles, is a student in the public schools.
J. D. MOLITOR is a building contractor of more than thirty years ex- perience in Duluth, being a member of the firm J. D. Molitor & Brother, whose offices and shops are at 617 West First street.
Mr. Molitor was born in the state of Iowa, June 30, 1858. His father, Francis Molitor, was born in Germany and was also a carpenter and contractor during his lifetime. He came to America very early and enlisted and served in the Mexican war and when he died in Iowa in 1918 it was claimed that he was the last surviving Mexican war veteran. He was a man of thorough education, and his life was lived to good pur- pose and with results not altogether to be measured by financial success. He had a family of eleven children, J. D. Molitor being the fifth in age. J. D. Molitor attended the public schools of his native state and was only ten years of age when he began assisting his father and learning the trades at the basis of building construction. In 1879, on reaching his majority, he moved to Southern Minnesota and was employed as a journeyman carpenter until 1887, in which year he came to Duluth, and the following year he and his brother engaged in the contracting and building business. His firm has maintained special facilities for jobbing work in store and office fixtures, but has also constructed outright many of the conspicuous buildings along Superior street and other thorough- fares. Several of these buildings are owned by Mr. Molitor.
On April 23, 1887, he married Miss Mary E. Page, who grew up and was educated in Iowa. Of the three children born to their marriage two are now living, Ethel H .. married, and Clifford F., now in the United States Army. He was trained at the Presidio in San Fran- cisco four months, and then assigned to duty with the Medical Corps at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Mr. Molitor is a Republican in politics and a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
GUST CARLSON. Closely connected with the wonderful development of the drilling business from crude pioncer business to the present mod- ern system, and always an important factor in the civic life of the com- munities in which he has lived and worked, Gust Carlson, of Duluth, is easily one of the most important figures of the Mesaba Range, and one to whose energy, practical knowledge and executive ability much credit is due. He is a native of Sweden, where he was born September 17, 1869, a son of Louis Carlson.
In 1879 Louis Carlson came to the United States alone, and at first worked in the mines of Menominee, Marquette and the Gogebic Ranges, and was also in charge of several exploring camps, and when ore was struck on the Big Norah Mines he was among the first there. In 1891 he came to the Mesaba Range as an explorer and was employed by the Longyear interests, and ever afterward lived on this range. Later he worked for Barnes & Upton, and discovered the Clark mine at Chisholm. This was long before the towns on the Mesaba Range were established. and he and his men had to live in camps. As soon as Hibbing was laid out Mr. Carlson moved there, and continued his connection with mining work until his death, which occurred in 1897. He was a quiet, unassum- ing man who was recognized as being a miner of much more than aver-
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age ability. In 1880 his son Charles came to this country and obtained employment on the Mesaba, largely as a mechanic with boilers and en- gines. A daughter, Bridget, came over in 1892, and she later became the wife of J. H. Carlson of Hibbing.
In February, 1888, Gust Carlson joined the family in this country, being at that time nineteen years of age, with a practical experience of five years as a machinist. While at that time he could not speak a word of English, he found compatriots at Hurley, Wisconsin, and being very intelligent and anxious to learn it was not long before he had an ex- cellent working knowledge of the new language. At the time he was a resident of Hurley that city was in its "wild and wooly" days, and he remembers those frontier experiences very well. Leaving Hurley Mr. Carlson worked in various mines, and in the fall of 1890 went to Seattle, Washington, thence to California, and on April 1, 1893, landed on the Mesaba Range, coming by rail as far as Mountain Iron, from whence he went to the present site of the Pillsbury Mine, as an ex- plorer in the employ of Barnes & Upton of Duluth, who had an option on what is now the Clark Mine. While making his explorations Mr. Carlson lived principally at Hibbing. While he followed mining and ex- ploring, he gradually drifted into other avenues of endeavor. He worked as a test digger, mined in the Sellers Mine for a time, and then embarked in business as a driller contractor. For five years he continued in this line, and then organized the Carlson Exploration Company at Hibbing, of which he is yet president, although G. A. Wellner is now the active head. For years he was vice president of the Miners & Merchants State Bank of Hibbing, and for the past two years has been its presi- dent. Mr. Carlson is also president of the First National Bank of Chisholm. He is a part owner of the Morton Mine, and is financially interested in the concentrating plant at Old Mesaba, which is for the purpose of utilizing the low grade magnetic ores of the Eastern Mesaba Range. This bids fair to become one of the great industries of the ore business. In 1911, Mr. Carlson moved to Duluth, which has since been his home. He belongs to the Duluth Commercial Club and the Northland Country Club. At present he is actively interested in the development of the Cuyuna Range, and owns a one-third interest of the ore body which has been under lease located on the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter, and the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 17-46-29 on the Cuyuna Range, containing about 1.500.000 tons of good average grade of Cuyuna Range ore. This has admirable conditions for open pit working. Mr. Carlson also owns a third interest of the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of sec- tion 17-46-29, consisting of large deposits, some 3.000.000 tons, of mer- chantable ore. Another holding of his is the Brainerd-Cuyuna mine fee of that range. which is equipped and developed to ship. -
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