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 52
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Dr. George T. Ayres is next to the youngest in a family of seven children. His brother Lloyd is a physician at Glenview, Illinois. George Ayres graduated from the Columbus Grove High School in his native state at the age of sixteen, took this literary work in Wooster College at Wooster, Ohio, spent two years in medical studies at Western Reserve University at Cleveland, and in 1897 graduated from Rush Medical Col- lege of Chicago. He had one year of service as interne in the Presbyte- rian Hospital of Chicago, and since then his professional interests have been identified with Ely.
At Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1901, Doctor Ayres married Miss Una M. Morning. They have three children, William, Florence and Jane. Doctor Ayres is a member of the St. Louis County, Minnesota State and Ameri- can Medical Associations. He is a Knight Templar, thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen of America and the Royal League.
During the World war he was medical examiner for the local draft board, also a captain of the Home Guard, and on August 9, 1918, was commissioned a captain in the Medical Corps, being first assigned to duty with the Aviation Department at Scott Field, Illinois, then at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and finally at Caruthers Field at Fort Worth, Texas. He was honorably discharged January 20, 1919. Doctor Ayres is vice president of the First National Bank of Ely. He was the first master of Ely Lodge of Masons, and has been a member of the City Council and for a number of years was on the School Board.
CALVIN A. DAHLGREN has spent practically all his life since boyhood in the big woods of the northwest. He knows the forest resources of this section from every point of view, from timber cruiser and lum- berjack to the technical and important responsibilities of a guardian of the forest. His work has taken him into nearly all the big forest re- serves of the northwestern states, but for a number of years his home has been at Ely, where he is supervisor of the Superior National Forest.
He was born at Anoka, Minnesota, May 25, 1880, and his middle name was given in honor of the town of his birth. His parents, Adolph and Inga (Lindin) Dahlgren, were natives of Sweden, where his father was employed as a forester on a large estate. The parents came to the United States in 1871, locating near Duluth, where Adolph Dahlgren was employed on railroad construction on the first railroad to enter Duluth territory. Later he moved to Anoka and was superintendent of the planing mill of the W. D. Washburn Lumber Company. In later years he had charge of the retail lumber yard of Sawyer & Arnold at Paynesville, Minnesota. This veteran lumberman died September 1, 1908, at the age of seventy-nine, and his wife died in the spring of 1913, at the age of seventy-eight. They were devout Lutherans in religion.
Of their six children Calvin A. was the fifth in age. He remained in the public schools at Anoka until he reached the seventh grade, and then, at the age of sixteen, ran away from home and had some months of sightseeing and experience in the Dakotas and Montana. After nine months he returned home and resumed his work, finishing the studies of the eighth grade. For a year after leaving school he was employed in the North Star Boot and Shoe factory, and then sought the line of work for which all his talents seem to have best fitted him. He hired out for wages of $30 a month with the firm of John Goss & Sons and
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spent a winter in the logging camps on the headwaters of Run River in northern Minnesota. From 1899 to 1904 Mr. Dahlgren was in the serv- ice of the State of Minnesota as a scaler. In 1904 he became scaler un- der the Federal Department of the Interior on ceded Indian lands in Minnesota. In 1909 he became a forest guard in the National Forest and the same year took the civil service examination and was appointed forest ranger with headquarters at Ely. In January, 1913, Mr. Dahl- gren went to the Coeur d' Alene district of Idaho and subsequently, fol- lowing another civil service examination, was appointed lumberman in · the Forestry service. In October, 1918, he was transferred to the dis- trict including Wyoming, Nebraska, Minnesota, Michigan and Colorado, with headquarters at Denver. Then in June, 1919, he returned to Ely as supervisor of the Superior National Forest. Under his jurisdiction is one and a quarter million acres of National Forest land.
This brief outline of his promotions hardly conveys an adequate idea of the tremendous energy Mr. Dahlgren has put into his chosen work and profession. He is one of the three supervisors in the service of the United States Government who are not college or technical school graduates. He grew up in the woods, had the practical experience, worked alongside graduates of forestry schools, used his powers of ob- servation and studied their methods, and every examination he passed successfully. His experience has been under all kinds of conditions, and he knows the character of the old-time lumberjack and also the timber thief.
Mr. Dahlgren is a popular member of the Ely community, is a mem- ber of the Forest Committee of the Commercial Club, a member of the St. Louis County Club and fraternally is a Mason and Yeoman. He mar- ried Signie Skoglund, of Ely. They have one daughter, Jane Audry.
C. ALTON PALMER is well known in Duluth financial circles and has been steadily in the service of local banks since he left school. He became assistant cashier of the Riverside State Bank when it was organized and opened for business, April 12, 1919, and is now cashier of that institution, which has grown rapidly and has a capital and surplus of $60,000. Other officers are A. Miller McDougall, president, and Lewis G. Castle, vice president, while some of the directors are Julius H. Barnes, E. M. Lam- bert, Alexander McDougall and Ward Ames, Jr.
Mr. Palmer was born November 23, 1889, in Duluth, son of John A. and Mary Ann (Randall) Palmer. His father was born in Michigan and his mother in Toronto, Canada. His father is an engineer for the Northwestern Oil Company.
C. A. Palmer was the first born of three children, and was six years of age when his mother died. He attended the public schools and the Duluth Business University and at the age of sixteen went to work as a messenger boy for the News-Tribune. He was with that Duluth paper three years, and since then all his time and energies have been de- voted to banking. He began as a messenger boy with the Northern National Bank, was promoted to bookkeeper, then to teller and to audi- tor, and altogether spent ten years in the service of that old Duluth in- stitution. He left the Northern National on the organization of the Riverside State Bank in 1919, and January 15, 1920, was promoted to cashier.
He is a Republican voter, a member of the Duluth Boat Club and the Order of Elks. January 3, 1916, he married Miss Ora. A. Englesby, whose father was a native of New York and whose mother was born in Wisconsin. They have a daughter, Mary Ann, born June 28, 1918.
Q. alton Palmer
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DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
HARRY E. WHITE. It is almost thirty years since Harry E. White, recently graduated from the University of Minnesota, came into the Iron Range district as an aspirant for the work and honors of the pro- fession of mining engineer. In order to defray the expenses of his university education he taught in rural schools and various circumstances combined caused his return to that work and it has given him a per- manent career, one of high honor and usefulness, though perhaps with- out some of the financial advantages and attractions of the profession of his first choice.
Mr. White has been superintendent of the Ely schools since 1912, and his service of nine years has resulted in a great advance in local education, the equipment of the school population with better buildings, and improvement in all departments. Altogether he has been identified with school work for twenty-seven years. Before coming to Ely, and not mentioning several rural schools in which he taught, he was super- intendent at Little Falls, at Princeton, Minnesota, five years, at War- ren three years and at Royalton one year.
Mr. White has spent most of his life in Minnesota. He was born at Sycamore in Kane County, Illinois, November 16, 1866, son of Edgar and Emma (Thurston) White. His father gave his active years to farming, and from Illinois moved to Clear Lake, Minnesota, where he died at the age of sixty-nine. His widow is now living in Minneapolis. Both parents were devout Methodists. They had six children : Frank P., a member of the Minneapolis bar; Harry E .; Annie M., a teacher in Minneapolis ; Mrs. C. D. Schwab, of St. Cloud; Mrs. C. E. Nickerson, of Minneapolis, and Daniel, who is chief clerk in the weighmaster's office at St. Paul.
Harry E. White was educated in the rural schools of Minnesota, at- tended high school at Monticello, and in 1893 graduated from the Uni- versity of Minnesota. During his university course he had specialized in subjects that would give him a preliminary training for a career as · mining engineer. On leaving the university in 1893 he came to the range country and for a time was connected with the government geo- logical survey. At that time the Pioneer and Zenith Mines were being developed. Shortly afterward came the great financial panic and an almost total cessation of development work in the range country for several years, and in that interval Mr. White became permanently identi- fied with school work. He is a member of the Masonic order, is a Con- gregationalist, and Mrs. White is a member of the Episcopal Church.
In 1895 he married Maud J. Galley, daughter of Henry Galley, of Royalton. . Mr. and Mrs. White have two children, Philip P. and Dor- othy, the latter now a senior in the Ely High School.
The name of Philip P. White occupies a place on the honor roll of Minnesota's soldier dead. He was a graduate of the Ely High School and attended the State University, and early in the war with Germany volunteered, being sent to Jefferson Barracks and later to Fort Benja- min Harrison, Indianapolis. After his early training he was assigned to Ambulance Company B in the Second Division, with the rank of corporal. December 17, 1917, he embarked from Hoboken and on De- cember 24 landed at Brest. He was given further training at Bourmont, France, and during the following year was frequently on battle lines at various sectors, including Verdun, Aisne, Marne, St. Mihiel, Champaigne. Meuse-Argonne. He was promoted to the rank of first-class sergeant . At the date of the armistice was at Sedan ready for action. After the armis- tice he accompanied the Second Division as part of the Army of Occupa- tion, and while with the American forces in Germany he died of the
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influenza, February 19, 1919, and was buried in the American cemetery at Coblenz, Germany.
JULIUS SHANEDLING, who has gained prominent and secure vantage ground as one of the leading figures in the business activities of the thriving city of Virginia, has the distinction of having been one of the earliest merchants of this place, with the development of which his busi- ness has kept pace, with the result that his firm, in which his asso- ciate is his brother Morris, now controls a large and important trade, drawn from the entire section normally tributary to Virginia. He is in the very prime of his useful manhood and has the satisfaction of knowing that the land of his adoption has not denied him the opportuni- ties for the achieving of the success to which he has earnestly bent his en- ergies. He was born in Russian Lithuania on the 14th of April, 1871, and in the schools of his native land he continued his studies until at the age of fourteen years he completed a course in the gymnasium at Leibau-an institution corresponding to the high school of the United States. He was a lad of sixteen years when he severed the ties that bound him to home and native land and bravely set forth to seek his fortunes in America. On landing at Castle Garden, in the port of New York City, his cash capital was represented in the meager sum of $5. For the first six months he applied himself to whatever occupation he could obtain, but his ambition was to find a place in which he could by honest endeavor make advancement toward the goal of personal and business independence. He carefully saved his earnings and finally ac- cumulated a sufficient sum to enable him to make his way westward to Minnesota. For a time he was variously employed in the city of Minne- apolis, and with characteristic initiative and determination he made his first independent business venture by investing in a small stock of goods and setting out as a pack peddler. Advancement was his watchword, and finally he was enabled to open a small general store not far distant from Minneapolis. Within a short time, after a preliminary investigation . in various localities of St. Louis County, he established his residence at Virginia in February, 1893, the town having been founded in the preced- ing year and much building construction being under way. Among the pioneer business places of the new mining town the saloons were most in evidence, both in number and volume of business. In March Mr. Shan- edling opened a clothing store of modest type, and prosperity attended the venture from the beginning. He has since continued as one of the strong, popular and progressive citizens and business men of the town and though he has met with reverses, including the destruction of his store and its contents by fire on two different occasions, in each of which much of the business section of Virginia was wiped out, he has not fal- tered in his allegiance to the community or failed to recognize the promise which the future has given. His brother Morris, individually mentioned on other pages, is his coadjutor in the conducting of the large and prosperous retail business, in which they handle select and varied lines of men's clothing and furnishing goods, hats, caps, etc., and the enterprise owes its prosperity to fair and honorable dealings and effective service. The brothers now have two stores in Virginia and one at Eveleth.
Upon attaining to his legal majority Mr. Shanedling applied for nat- uralization papers, and after gaining full citizenship he proved himself duly appreciative of his privileges and advantages. He has been lib- eral and loyal as a citizen and is ever ready to do his part in the fur- therance of measures advanced for the general good of the community. During the nation's participation in the great World war Mr. Shanedling
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served as a member of the local United States Defense League and was otherwise zealous in advancing and supporting the various war meas- ures of the Government. He is a genuine "Booster" for Virginia, and has utmost confidence in its. continued advancement and still more im- portant future. He is an active member of the local Kiwanis Club, and his political allegiance is given to the Republican party.
On the 10th of June, 1896, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Shanedling to Miss Annie Meyers, of Minneapolis, and they have five children-Harriet, Monroe J., Evelyn L., Ralph M. and Phyllis L. All of the children were given the advantages of the public schools of their native city and those of sufficient age have later been sent to eastern schools to obtain higher educational training. The son Monroe was a sergeant in the Students' Reserve Corps at the time of the World war, but was not called into active service abroad. The family is one of marked popularity and is prominent in the social activities of the home community.
MORRIS SHANEDLING is associated with his brother Julius, and they are numbered among the pioneer merchants and representative business men of Virginia, in which now vigorous and attractive city of St. Louis County they established themselves and opened a modest clothing store in the year 1893, when the place was little more than an obscure mining camp of the great Mesaba Range. Of Julius Shanedling individual men- tion is made on other pages of this volume.
Morris Shanedling was born in the province of Lithuania, Russia, September 5, 1869, and in his native land he received his youthful edu- cation in the common schools. He then became an assistant in his fath- er's general merchandising store, and continued to be thus employed until he was twenty-four years old. He then came to the United States and joined his brother Julius, who had become established in business in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was in the year 1893 that Mor- ris Shanedling thus made his appearance in the metropolis of Minnesota, and before the close of that year he and his brother came to Virginia and opened a clothing store on Chestnut street. They were thus numbered among the first merchants of the town, and here they have since contin- ued to be associated in the mercantile business, in which they have kept pace with the growth of the community, with the result that they are numbered among the thoroughly representative citizens and business men of the city. Prosperity has crowned their well ordered efforts, and thus has been justified their faith in their adopted land, to which as loyal American citizens they pay unqualified fealty and appreciation. In 1905 the parents, Philip and Sarah Shanedling, joined the sons in Virginia, and here the father passed away in 1915, he being the first Jewish citi- zen to die in this city, and his widow being now a venerable resident of Eveleth, this county. Mr. Shanedling is a staunch Republican and is a liberal and progressive citizen. June 11, 1905, he married Miss Sarah Rodgers, of Chicago, and they have four children-Marion, Abraham, Ruth and Pearl.
HANS C. HANSEN. A pioneer of the Mesaba Range, Hans C. Han- sen, a resident of Hibbing who has achieved the distinction of success, came to this country through a desire to better (himself and won out through a long and persistent fight against adverse conditions.
He was born in Denmark November 18, 1852. His parents were small farmers, and he grew up with limited advantages in every way. He had a will to do and a courage that sent him out on his own re- sources a stranger in a strange land. He came to this country in 1873,
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and for a time worked as a farm laborer near St. Paul. While he never got more than $26 a month and oftentimes much less during the sum- mer, and in winter hauled ice at $10 a month for the Peoples Ice Com- pany at St. Paul, he used his early employment as a means of acquiring a knowledge of the English language, also saved some of his earnings, and eventually bought a team and with this addition to his capital equip- ment started west for a railroad. Later he took small contracts and for twelve years was employed by the Great Northern Railway.
Mr. Hanson became identified with the Mesaba' Range nearly thirty years ago. In 1893 he came to Virginia, where he had a small contract with the Winston Brothers to help build the railroad into Virginia. Later with the same firm he helped strip the Iron King Mine, about two miles from Virginia, and in the fall of the same year did the first stripping at the Mahoning Mine. The following spring he entered the service of the Winston Brothers, who had large contracts all over the United States, and for eight years was superintendent of construction for them on dif- ferent branches of the Omaha Railroad. About 1900 Mr. Hansen re- turned to the Mesaba Range and superintended the stripping of the Jordan Mine and later the stripping of the Burt-Sellers Mine at Hib- bing. In the spring of 1901 he became a partner in the firm of Win- ston Brothers & Dear, and has been actively associated with that well known engineering and construction concern ever since. He is a man of action, aggressive, can be relied upon for success in practically every- thing he undertakes, and is implicitly trusted by his associates and friends in St. Louis County. Mr. Hansen was one of the organizers of the Security State Bank, and has served as its first and only president. He is identified in a business way with various other concerns, and is a willing worker for everything affecting the welfare of his home village. In politics he is a Republican and is a member of the Lutheran Church.
At the age of thirty-three Mr. Hansen married Sara Lundegraf, who died a year later, leaving one daughter, Mabel Lillian, who lived only six months. On January 3, 1888, Mr. Hansen married Andrina Svensrud, of Norwegian parentage. The two children of their marriage are Lillian, who died June 18, 1909, at the age of fifteen, and Hazel, who married Fred Klass.
JOSEPH T. VICKERS. The active business life of Joseph T. Vick- .ers in this country has been connected with the development of the iron industry of Michigan and Minnesota, which has stimulated interest in these localities and added largely to their wealth and industrial and commercial importance. His is a career eminently worthy of emulation. Commencing life in obscurity and modest circumstances, laboring even in boyhood in the mines of the iron district of England, with steady industry and the constant practice of economy at length he saw his arduous efforts bear fruit, and has profited and today is in charge of the Belgrade Mine, which was opened at Biwabik by the New York Steel Company, and since 1912 has been owned by Pickands, Mathers & Co. Joseph T. Vickers was born in the iron district of England in 1870, a son of Robert Vickers, also a miner, who died in England when his family was not yet reared to maturity. By the time he was twelve years old Joseph T. Vickers, who had developed into a strong and active lad for his years, was working in the mines of Lancaster, and he remained in that district until 1893, when he came to Michigan to join his mother and several of the family who, following the death of the father, had immigrated to the United States and found employment in the iron mines of Michigan. Skilled workman as he was, Joseph T. Vickers found no difficulty in securing work as a miner, and he was employed
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JOSEPH T. VICKERS
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at Ishpeming, Marquette County, that state, until 1901, when he resolved to seek his fortune on the Mesaba Range, and came to Virginia, where he was made foreman of the Mornoces Mine. Later he opened the Mohawk Mine at Aurora. Subsequently he was engaged in operating the Syracuse and Bangor Mines, and then came to Biwabik. A man of sound common sense, he has always taken a constructive part in civic affairs, for he has realized that if the solid men of a community neglect public matters they fall into the hands of the incompetent or dishonest. During his childhood and youth he had so few educational advantages that he is anxious to see that exceptionally good ones are provided for the children of Biwabik and throughout St. Louis County, and is not back- ward in making his opinions and convictions public. For a year while residing at Aurora he served as a member of the town council, and for seven years was chairman of the township board of that community.
In 1905 Mr. Vickers was united in marriage with Rose Shillman of Ishpeming, Michigan. They have three sons, namely: Mathew, Jo- seph and Arthur. Fraternally Mr. Vickers belongs to Biwabik Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and Duluth Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Duluth, Minne- sota ; and is a member of Diamond Lodge, I. O. O. F. at Biwabik. In politics he is a Republican. One of his brothers, William Vickers, is also a resident of Biwabik and is leader of its band. Mr. Vickers' distin- guishing characteristic is firmness, combined with force of character, in- domitable energy and executive ability, all of which have been potent agencies for his advancement to different places of trust and responsibil- ity not only in business but public affairs. Although not born in this country, he is very representative of its spirit and devoted to its institu- tions, and rejoices in the fact that in it he is able to give his children advantages way beyond those his father afforded his offspring.
FRED BAYHA is one of the oldest merchants from the standpoint of continuous years of service at Duluth. He has been a furniture dealer here for over thirty years, and his business is one of the landmarks of the city's commercial district.
He was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1856, a son of Lewis Bayha. At the age of twenty-one, having finished his edu- cation and with a limited commercial training, he moved out to Huron County, Michigan, where after working on a farm six months he became a clerk in a general store. He remained there four years, and after a brief visit back to Philadelphia returned to Huron County, Michigan, and married Louise Febig. For four years after his marriage Mr. Bayha was in the commission business at Alpena, Michigan, and in 1887 reached Duluth, where he entered the retail furniture business on Nine- teenth avenue and Superior street. While located there high water flooded his store and entailed heavy losses. He was in that first loca- tion three years and then for six years at 108-110 First avenue, West. In 1892 he took in his brothers, George and Phil, under the firm name Bayha & Co. His next location was on Superior street and First ave- nue, East, where he remained six years, then for ten years his store was on Second avenue, from which it was moved to its present location at 226-228 West Superior. The firm have always done a large business, and maintain one of the best selected stocks in the north country.
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