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 4
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Passing briefly over the earliest pre-settlement history, Northern Minnesota, until 1855, was the hunting ground of the Indian ; and it was not until the seventies were almost spent that white men set- tled far from the shore of Lake Superior, at its western extremity. In the middle sixties and seventies some had passed over the eastern end of the Mesabi Range-in great numbers during the "gold rush" to the Vermilion in the sixties, and spasmodically in the seventies, hoping against hope that the lean magnetite formations of the Eastern Mesabi would bring a little money to the well-nigh empty pockets of Duluthians, after the panic of 1873 had taken away Duluth's first treasure, Jay Cooke. But very few had been in the middle and west- ern parts of the Mesabi Range until the eighties; and those who did pass along the range, or touched parts of it, were mapmakers, geol- ogists, or timber cruisers. Geologists, of course, had eyes mainly for mineral indications, but the cartographers and timber cruisers might be grouped, the mapmaking being in most cases incidental to timber cruising. Northern Minnesota was the land of white pine. St. Louis County had an especially heavy "stand"; and Stuntz town- ship was, it seems, among the best areas in that respect. But noth- ing could be done until the government survey had been made and the vacant lands had been thrown open to entry, which was done in the seventies and early eighties. The period 1875-1884 was, perhaps,
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the most active in land-office transactions, i. e., in the sale of pine lands to lumbermen. Pardee writes :
as fast as these vacant lands were thrown open to entry, two or three townships at a time, the pine-land crowd was waiting at the land office, with purse and scrip, to take their pick of the pine * * * The explorers, who had been crossing and recrossing the lands to be offered, came in with their estimates of standing pine, their rough maps showing what streams could be used to drive the logs and where the boom should be, and their rumors of iron. To which, since the cruiser was a bit of a seer and a prophet, the land men listened indulgently; but when he spoke of pine, they hearkened-for the cruiser knew. Iron was not in their books; buying land at a dollar and a quarter an acre, and holding it until the timber fetched fifty dollars an acre was profit enough for their modest desires * * *
Many of these bewildering prizes that Fortune thrust on the pine-land men were bunched in two fall openings, in 1875 and in 1882 * These * * were largely offered lands, sold under a law of 1854 (repealed in 1889) by which any lands that seemed especially choice were to be auctioned off at a minimum bid of $1.25 an acre. More often than not that was the top price, for baronial truces were formed from time to time, each land man marking off his selection. Sometimes, however, there was lively bidding.
At the big sale in Duluth, in 1882, when lumbermen from all over the country were present * * * some feeling had risen. One group of big buyers, fearing the price would be run up on them, asked a young cruiser to put in a bid for a thousand acres they wanted. The lad made his bid. "That for yourself, George?" asked A. J. Whiteman * * George gulped hard * and admitted it was. "Then I'll not bid against you." "How many pieces are on your list?" asked one of the Pillsburys. "Twenty-six" the young man said, breathing hard. "Looks like a good deal for a cruiser," said the big lumberman, "but if all the rest will hold off, I will." And so, much to his confusion, the whole block was knocked down to the young man at his opening bid. When his principals heard it, they were so delighted that they had half a notion to give him an interest in the mineral rights-for all the country was under suspicion of value-but they compromised on a twenty-dollar bill. The same land contained seventy million tons of ore.
The Pillsburys *
* * were buying pine lands in the country in 1875, sometimes at public sale, and often by soldier's additional scrip. An ordinary citizen who exercises his homestead right thereby exhausts it: but a soldier or his widow who failed to take all he might claim could have scrip for the remainder, good anywhere at any time. And it seemed as though every veteran had been taking up a homestead that left something coming to him. Anyway, the Pillsburys filed on thousands of acres at a uniform price of $200 a parcel.
Well, years later, H. M. Bennett of Minneapolis came to them, saying he thought there was iron under some of their lands. Naturally, they were pleased to hear it, though they did not feel like spending money on an im- probability. But they would give him a chance to prove it. If he could show up 100.000 tons of ore, he could have a half-interest in the mineral rights. With that contract in his pocket, Bennett went to John M. Longyear, of Mar- quette, an experienced explorer then operating on the Gogebic, offering him one-half of his half for all the ore he could uncover. They found some millions of tons, the Monroe, Glen, Pillsbury and a number more. These mines are paying the Pillsbury estate and the Longyear-Bennett partnership immense royaltics * * for the husks of a pine-land deal * * * *
Likewise acquired by scrip and sagacity, the 50,000 acres of timber land of the Lorenzo Day estate, and the holdings of T. B. Walker and Pettit and Robinson and others * *
* have turned out a number of good ore properties.
Fortune played many whimsical tricks. James McCahill, a carpenter and capitalist in a small way, loaned $1,000 on a homestead up in the woods. The homesteader, tickled to death to get that much out of his claim, hurried away, thinking what a cute trick he had played, leaving MeCahill to bemoan his folly and worry along under the carrying charges. Last heard from, the Shenango mine was paying him close to $100,000 a year royalties on that abandoned homestead.
But the big prizes fell to a comparatively small group of men. most of them members of the Saginaw crowd, Wellington R. Burt. Ezra T. Rust. El- bridge M. Fowler, Clarence M. Hill and Aaron T. Bliss, the Wright and Davis syndicate * * * Simon J. Murphy, 'Morton B. Hull, of Chicago, William Boeing and W. C. Yawkey, of Detroit, and others, on whom Opportunity lay in wait, with a richly upholstered club.
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In the heart of the Hibbing district is a solid body of ore two miles long, half a mile wide and a hundred million dollars thick, known as the Burt-Pool and the Hull-Rust, as the government line crosses it. Burt, former- governor and otherwise prominent in Michigan, followed the pine bargains into the new country, buying in the same district from 1883 down to 1888. His best purchase was in the last year, when George N. Holland bought for him a few forties from Eaton and Merritt *
* * and about 1,500 acres from the C. N. Nelson Lumber Company. Now the Nelson people, who had a confidence in mineral values that was hardly warranted by the developments up to that time, were reluctant to let the land go. But they happened to need the money just then, and so Burt bought the land, timber and all, for $17,000. That was in 1888. Two years later, the first discoveries (on the Mesabi range) were made, and inside of five years Burt was leasing his mining prop- erties at a rate that has paid from the Burt mine alone as high as $250,000 a year.
The Hull and Boeing lands also shared in the capital prizes. In 1882, Hull and Boeing engaged with Marshall H. Alworth, a reliable Saginaw cruiser, to look up lands for them in the towns that were about to be opened. They would furnish the money on his judgment, and after they had been reim- bursed, with interest, one-third of the profit was to be his, "in consideration for his services in locating and selecting these lands." He brought them several good tracts on which the pine yielded a profit, and at the big December sale they bought 7,500 acres. Their total outlay for the several tracts was $22.500. Alworth's one-third, which cost him a summer's campaign. through * *
woods and swamps, fighting mosquitoes * has made him a millionaire a dozen times over. These mines were in the group uncovered by Frank Hibbing in 1893. In a few months he showed up 10,000,000 tons-not one- tenth of the deposit-and sold for $250.000 a half-interest in his mines, on which the lessees reckoned they could net a dollar a ton, on a guaranteed product of 300,000 tons a year (a million was nearer the actual figure).
Clarence M. Hill and Aaron T. Bliss paid about $50,000 for some 11,000 acres picked up by F. R. Webber in 1887, scattered over a tract sixty miles one way and thirty-five the other. Most of the land yielded nothing but pine, maybe half a million dollars worth; but in four years they were making leases at twenty-five cents a ton for the ore in a few of the forties, and after the known deposits were disposed of they sold the remaining mineral rights, on a chance, for $150,000.
High and low, the fairies scattered their favors. One poor cobbler homesteaded a forty, and, as soon as he got his patent, gave an option on it for $30,000. He died soon after. It was more prosperity than he could endure. Leonidas Merritt spent exactly $41 in digging a testpit, and turned up a mine worth a million (Missabe Mountain).
But speaking of fairies whose favors were scattered so widely. The Wright and Davis syndicate had 25,000 acres near Swan River. In the hard times of 1894, they would have been glad to sell it for $75,000. They kept it because nobody wanted it, and in a few years the Mahoning had developed on this land. In 1904, James J. Hill, coming into the ore market bought the Wright . and Davis lands. "The Michigan people had offered it to Weyer- haeuser for $3 an acre," says Hill. "I paid them $4,000,000; it will yield $60.000.000." As happy over it as a boy who has got the best of it, swapping jack knives.
Which narrative by Mr. Pardee gives the reader an intelligent idea of the fundamentals of Hibbing history. The timber barons were the land barons, and are the lords of the manor today. They, or their heirs, are still enjoying the favors of Fortune, without risk or labor. A feeholder, royalty taker, has an enviable existence. "The ore is found, and he may, therefore, sit at his ease: the mining com- pany will mine it for him." If the mining company should fail, the feeholder need not worry. Another operator will "turn up." Mean- while, "the ore will keep." As James J. Hill once said: "The ore won't burn up, and it won't go out of fashion." His treasure is moth and rust proof.
That was the happy psychology of the land baron, the feeholder. The tragic failures of Mesabi history have been among the operators, the mining men : the great fortunes yielded by the Mesabi have gone to the land barons, the feeholders, mainly.
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Early Explorers .- Frank Hibbing was on the range from 1888, but until the end of 1891, or early in 1892, was to the eastward, it is believed. Captain LeDuc, a mining man, was in the vicinity of Hib- bing in 1887, and found "drift ore and quartz on the surface" in many places, but he passed on to the westward. Other early explorers were more or less conversant with conditions and prospects along the range, and the Merritts who, from the early 'eighties, "hovered over the Range," and seemed to know "every foot of it." may be presumed to have stood upon the site of Hibbing long before E. J. Longyear cut his "tote" road through, to Nashwauk, in 1891. But it seems that the first to engage in actual explorations, that is, to establish a mining camp, within close proximity to what now is the Village of Hibbing, was Frank Hibbing. He was in township 59-14 in 1891, but several leases of land in the Hibbing district were granted to him late in that year, or early in 1892, so that the time of his coming to Hibbing may, with fair assurance, be recorded as 1891.
The first indication, in lease record, that Frank Hibbing had been in township 58-20, is lease of December 29, 1891, from Welling- ton R. Burt, of Saginaw to Frank Hibbing, giving the latter right to mine ore deposits found on "parts of sections 13, 20, 21, 23, 24, 28, 31, 32,, and 34 of township 58-20. This lease was transferred on March 17, 1892, to the Lake Superior Iron Company, and called for a 35- cent royalty, and $6,000 advance payment. Another lease bears date of January 1, 1892, and is from George L. Burrows and Ezra Rust, of Saginaw, and Gilbert B. Goff, of Edenville, Michigan, to Frank Hib- bing, the leasing being of lands in sections 4 and 5 of 57-21, at 30 cents a ton royalty. Another from Burrows and Rust to Hibbing. same date, leased seven forties in 58-21 and 57-21. These also were assigned to the Lake Superior Iron Company, on March 17, 1892. And at the same time that company received transfer of lease secured of Alworth and Trimble, from Foster Lumber Company of Milwau- kee, of lands in 58-20, at the same royalty.
Burt-Poole Mine .- These activities of Frank Hibbing had in- centive particularly in his discovery of merchantable ore on what was known at the outset as the Lake Superior mine, but eventually came into record as the Burt-Poole mine. "To Frank Hibbing," states an early record, "belongs the honor of discovering the first mer- chantable body of ore in the Hibbing District." The record continues : "In 1892, Capt. T. W. Nelson, working for Mr. Hibbing; discovered ore on the property known as the Burt-Poole, and the Burt bears the reputation of being the first shipping mine" (of the Hibbing Dis- trict, presumably, seeing that it was not until 1895 that the first ship- ment was made). Winchell confirms the discovery of ore at the Lake Superior Mine in 1892.
The Lake Superior Iron Company was organized on March 15, 1892, by A. J. Trimble and Frank Hibbing, of Duluth ; W. D. Vernam and William Munro, of Superior, and W. H. Buffum, of New York. The capital authorized was $5,000,000, in shares of $25 denomination.
The Lake Superior Iron Company became the operating com- pany for many holdings of Hibbing, Trimble and Alworth, many leases being transferred to it during the next year or so. Among them were: Lease October 8, 1892, M. H. Ilull to A. J. Trimble and M. H. Alworth, lands in section 2-57-21, in 12-57-21 and 13-57-21 : lease February 23, 1892. C. L. Ortman to Frank Hibbing and M. H. Alworth, thirteen forties in 58-20, sections 11. 12, 13, 14 and 15; October 8, 1892, M. B. Hull to Trimble and Alworth, 11-57-21 ; same
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date and lessor, to Hibbing and Alworth, section 14-58-20, and other leases sections 14, 15, 22 of 58-20. Further leases from Hull to Trim- ble were filed in 1893. In March, 1893, E. B. Bartlett, of Brooklyn, and C. W. Wetmore, of New York, come into the record. These pro- moters, in March, 1893, working with the Merritts, sought to effect a consolidation of the more important Mesabi mining companies, and an arrangement was made by them, on March 6, 1893, with the Lake Superior Iron Company, by which a one-half interest in the Hibbing group of mines was to be transferred to the new company, for $100,- 000 cash, and a further $150,000 in deferred payments over eighteen months, the promoters to guarantee that the Duluth, Missabe and Northern extension to Hibbing "would be in not later than September 1, 1893." The agreement was assigned by Bartlett and Wetmore to the ill-fated New York and Missabe Iron Company-the new hold- ing company organized by these promoters, with the Merritts,-as was also assigned the Hibbing-Trimble contract of April 11, 1893, to them, covering seven forties in 31-58-20, leased by Lorenzo D. Day and J. W. Day to Hibbing and Trimble. The intracacies of the finan- cial endeavors of Wetmore are referred to in the chapter that deals with the general history of the Mesabi Range, and need not be re- stated here. Suffice it therefore to state that the New York and Mis- sabe Iron Company's assets eventually (in August, 1893) passed to John D. Rockefeller, and in November to the Rockefeller subsidiary formed to operate the mines. The importance of the Hibbing group is reflected in the name of the new company, the Lake Superior Con- solidated Iron Mines, by the forming of which and the eventual merger into the subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation (in 1901), Hibbing and his associates became millionaires.
The Lake Superior (Burt-Poole) mine development was placed under the superintendence of Capt. P. Mitchell, in 1893, when the Rockefeller subsidiary, the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, was formed, W. J. Olcott becoming general manager of all the mines. In 1894 the Lake Superior, or Burt-Poole, mine was being developed for underground mining, and Winchell stated that the basis of opera- tions by the Rockefeller Company was "a 30-cent lease, and the profits * *
* divided between the Consolidated and the Lake Superior Companies." In other words, Hibbing's original company still held a one-half interest in the property, or, to be exact, in the mining lease.
The Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway Company reached Hibbing in the fall of 1893, but although there were several mines then in process of development, no ore was shipped from the Hib- bing District until 1895, the Burt-Poole being the first to reach the shipping stage. Only 201,938 tons were shipped to 1900, but up to the end of 1919 the Burt is shown as having yielded 16,347,691 tons. This total covers shipments from the Poole Mine. There are today several Burt reserve mines, in Stuntz and Balkan townships, all con- trolled by the Oliver Iron' Mining Company. They show available deposits of approximately 24,000,000 tons of ore.
Sellers Mine .- The Sellers Mine was opened in the same year as the Burt. The feeholder, M. B. Hull, in 1893, gave John M. Sellers mining right to much of section 6 of 57-20, lease of January 17th covering the n. half of nw. qr., on the basis of a 35-cent royalty, with $7,000 cash advance; lease, April 5, 1893, was for n. half of sec- tion 6, on similar terms; and another lease of that date and terms referred to the sw. of ne. and nw. of se. of section 6. The first lease
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was transferred on October 20, 1893, to the Sellers Ore Company, "a combination of Pittsburg furnace men." C. H. Munger became superintendent, and shafts were being sunk in 1894. Winchell noted, in 1895, that the mine then had "an unpleasant amount of water to contend with."
Up to 1900, the total quantity shipped from the Sellers mine was 188,102 tons, but the mine has been yielding fair quantities almost every year since that time, the total mined to end of 1919 being 8,952,358 tons. The property passed to the Oliver Iron Mining Com- pany, present operators, and shows an available deposit still of about thirteen million tons. What is known as the Sellers Townsite mine, also an Oliver property, has an available deposit of 33,373,500 tons, to be able to work which is one of the reasons for the recent removal of part of the Village of Hibbing.
Mahoning Mine .- The Mahoning Mine was purchased from the Wright and Davis Syndicate, and the great property has been termed "the largest open-pit iron mine in the world." It probably is, in com- bination with the other adjoining mines, which, by the ceaseless shov- elling of the many and tireless steam shovels, have become merged into one vast gaping chasm. One writer thus describes the chasm, and the activity :
Stand on an edge of an open pit near Hibbing. One looks across a gulf a quarter of a mile wide and deep enough to lose a skyscraper in its huge trough. As far away as Grace Church from City Hall Square (New York) in one direction, as far in the other as from City Hall Square to the Battery, a puffing steam shovel is gnawing at the steep purple bank, perhaps a dozen of them here and there nipping at the rim of the bowl. Each thrusts its dipper against the bank, its jaws creak, the derrick groans, and five tons of ore are swung over the waiting car. As the bucket lets go its burden, one can hear one dollar and twenty-five cents clink into the feeholder's pocket, while another dollar and twenty-five cents jingle in the till of the leaseholding com- pany. Ten of these bucket-loads fill a fifty-ton car that looks, from the brink of the pit, like a match-box on spools, as it crawls on the bottom. Another car is warped into place and the steam-shovel again groans under its burdening wealth. All day long, all through the summer, these shovels are scooping up six, eight, ten thousand tons a day of fusible wealth.
Such activity has been going on for a generation, not only in Hibbing, but in all parts of the Mesabi Range, the excavations (of earth as well as ore) being approximately as much every three or four busy years as were accomplished in the whole of the work at Panama Isthmus. But at Hibbing, from the brink of the Mahoning- Hull-Rust Mine, the result of the ceaseless delving is impressively evident. The Hull-Rust-Mahoning open-pit alone has yielded more than eighty million tons of ore up to the present. That means, roughly, one hundred million yards of excavation, and probably another forty million yards could be added for original stripping ; say, 150,000,000 yards of excavation, in all. The Panama excavation repre- sented only 80,000,000 yards up to July 1, 1909, and it was then esti- mated than only another 100,000,000 yards would complete the work of cutting the canal. This comparison will give the general reader some indication of the stupendous work daily proceeding at Hibbing.
The Mahoning Mine was explored by W. C. Agnew, in 1894. The Mahoning Ore Company was formed, and the work of stripping the surface was at once begun. It was the first mine to be stripped in the Hibbing District. The original discovery by Agnew was in the ne. qr. of section 3, township 57-21, but soon the development extended to the north half of sections 1 and 2. The mine came into the shipping list in 1895, the ore going over the Wright and Davis
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logging road, known as the Duluth, Mississippi River and Northern, to Swan River, where it connected with the Duluth and Winnipeg line, leading to the ore docks at Superior. By the way, strenuous objection was made by the Mahoning Ore Company, in 1896, to the proposed inclusion of township 57-21 in Stuntz township, Mr. Agnew explaining that township 57-21 "is very rich, if not the richest in mineral and timber lands in the county," and, to support his belief that an injustice would be done the mining company by the pro- posed annexation which would give the township supervisers right to tax the company, he instanced the case of the school fund. Large amounts were drawn from the company, in school levy for the Hib- bing District, in which the Mahoning location had been placed, not- withstanding that the children thereof "must walk from one to two miles to reach the schoolhouse." However, the protest was ignored, and the Mahoning location, with township 57-21, came within the jurisdiction of Stuntz, the richest township in the state.
The Mahoning Mine shipped more than two million tons of ore in the nineties, when A. O. Beardsley was the mining captain, and up to the end of 1919, had shipped 29,618,759 tons. The mine is still under the direction of Mr. Agnew, though the Mahoning Ore Company has given way to the Mahoning Ore and Steel Company. R. N. Marble is the general superintendent, and the mine still has an unworked deposit of approximately 75,000,000 tons, including the several Mahoning reserve properties controlled by the same com- pany.
Day Mine .- The Day Mine was explored in 1892 or 1893 by Frank Hibbing. It adjoins the Burt, and passed eventually to the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, subsequently coming into the con- trol of the Oliver Iron Mining Company. It had yielded only 20,626 tons by 1900, and is credited with only 319,453 tons up to the end of 1919, though some ore from it is included in Burt Mine figures. There is still available a deposit of approximately six million tons.
Hull-Rust Mine .- The Hull and Rust Mines are owned, in fee, by the Hull and Rust families, the original landowners being M. B. Hull and Ezra Rust. The mining leases were the Hibbing, Trimble and Alworth, the mining leases passing to the Lake Superior Iron Company, and in turn to the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, and the Oliver Iron Mining Company, present operators. The Hull- Rust Mines entered the shipping list in 1896, under management of the Consolidated. It was then an underground mine. The separate figures for the Hull and Rust Mines are not available, but the com- bined shipment up to the end of 1919 was 51,848,910 tons. No other Mesabi mine comes anywhere near the Hull-Rust in tonnage shipped, or in quantity mined in one year. Within recent years the mine has given more than five million tons a year, the record being 7,665,611 tons in 1916. The available unworked deposit of the Hull-Rust and Hull Reserve Mines aggregates to the stupendous total of about 120,000,000 tons.
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