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 III > Part 11
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With this well rounded education he returned to the United States and rendered his first professional services as a chemist and metallurgist in Cleveland. For a time he was chemist for the Iron Mountain Company at Iron Mountain, Missouri, then went back to Cleveland, and on August 1, 1894, was engaged as chemist by the Lake Superior Consolidated at Mountain Iron on the Mesaba Range in northern Minnesota. Thus for over a quarter of a century he has been connected in a professional capacity with the iron ore district of St. Louis County. In 1895 he went to Duluth as chief chemist, and in 1903 his headquarters were transferred to Hibbing, where for seventeen years he has been chief chemist of the local offices of the Oliver Iron Mining Company.
December 6, 1895, Mr. Griese married Miss Lillie Hooper, of Roches- ter, New York. They have two children, Harry T. and Sylvia E.
LEO C. MITCHELL. The possibilities of northern Minnesota as an iron production region are being recognized, but there was a time not so far distant when these rich ore-bearing sections of the country lay undis- turbed and pioneers rushed to other fields, overlooking the wealth which lay close at hand. Not much more than a beginning has yet been made, for the supply seems inexhaustable, but enough development has taken place to change desolate timber tracts into thriving villages and cities and to create a wealth of untold millions. One of the families connected with the iron producing industry of northern Minnesota from the beginning is that bearing the name of Mitchell, and a member of it at Chisholm is Leo C. Mitchell, superintendent of the Monroe, Tenner, Chisholm, Clark, Glen and Wellington Mines of the Oliver Mining Company, who has made his home in St. Louis County for more than a quarter of a century, and has borne his part in the wonderful development of the Range country.
Mr. Mitchell has had a wonderful experience. Born at Hancock, Michigan, September 9, 1864, he is one of the nine children born to the marriage of Penticost J. Mitchell and Janet Robinson. The Mitchell family is inseparably and closely interwoven with the history of St. Louis County. As a boy Mr. Mitchell attended the public schools at Negaunee, Michigan, and when he was fourteen years of age started out to be self- supporting, and has continued to depend entirely upon his own efforts ever since. His first work was done as a clerk in a store at Negaunee, but he later became a helper in a lumber yard, and then worked in a sales stable. Before he was sixteen years old he was in the employ of a mining company, having in the meanwhile, however, secured some experi- ence in a gold mine at Buena Vista, and later at Leadville, Colorado. Still later he went down into New Mexico and worked for a development com- pany both in mining and lumbering. His mining experience has been in copper, silver and gold, and is very complete. Continuing with this same development company, he was sent by it into old Mexico and Arizona, and was with it for five years.
Returning to Michigan, Mr. Mitchell went into iron mining operations on the Gogebic Range when it was first opened in 1885, and filled various
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positions, including those of mechanic, pumpman and master mechanic, and learning the business thoroughly. This work of his covered the Colby group of mines, now a part of the holdings of the steel corporation. Through the different changes in ownership Mr. Mitchell has since con- tinuously worked for this concern. In 1894, after having worked on the Gogebic Range from 1888, he was sent to Hibbing, of the Mesaba Range of northern Minnesota. He has filled practically every conceivable posi- tion up to his present one with his company. Few men know the mining game as thoroughly and practically as does Mr. Mitchell, and he has learned it in the school of experience and by actual operation. From Hib- bing he came to Chisholm in 1902, and has been here ever since.
Mr. Mitchell is a Republican, and has been elected on his party ticket trustee of Chisholm, and as such has safeguarded the interests of the taxpayers. The Presbyterian Church holds his membership and benefits from his donations. His time is fully occupied with his business and family, so he has not taken an active part in fraternal or social organ- izations.
In 1887 Mr. Mitchell was united in marriage with Cora Goodwin, of Ironwood, Michigan, and they have had eight children born to them, namely: Walter D., who died when twenty years of age; Leona, who is Mrs. J. C. Madson; Claude, Chester, Pearl, Irma, Cora and Leo, who died in infancy.
Chester Mitchell is a veteran of the great war, having served in it as a member of the Eighty-seventh Division, Three Hundred and Twelfth Supply Train. He was sent overseas and saw one year's service in France, and received his honorable discharge following his return to the United States after the signing of the armistice. Having given his country a loyal service as a soldier, he is without doubt going to render it an equally valuable assistance as a private citizen, for a Government worth fighting for is worth supporting under any and all conditions. Mr. and Mrs. Mit- chell have every reason to be proud of their fine family, and the young people are reflecting great credit on their parents and the careful and con- scientious training they have always received.
JOHN ALLEN, proprietor of one of the largest garages and automobile repair establishments in Duluth, has spent many years in Minnesota, and has achieved his prosperity largely through the difficult role of hard toil.
Mr. Allen was born at Spring Lake, Michigan, September 5, 1869, and grew up with a common school education and with a training that fitted him for the active outdoor life. He came to Minnesota in 1892 and entered the service of the Swan River Logging Company at Swan River. He was in the service of that concern continuously for twenty- one years. Then for four years he was with the William Carlson Ore Company on the Cuyuna Range, most of the time as superintendent of the hydraulic department. This is a brief statement of a quarter of a century of faithful and earnest toil and service. He then came to Duluth and engaged in the automobile business. He has a large stock, with equipment and skilled operatives for handling all classes of automobile repairs. His garage is one of the largest in the city, being 106x156 feet, and with storage space for sixty automobiles. He has a large business in handling second hand cars, and keeps a large stock of automobile acces- sories.
Mr. Allen is a Catholic, a member of the Knights of Columbus and votes as a Democrat. August 5, 1900, he married, and he and his wife have four children: Alice, Mabel, Jane and Nelson J. Allen. Mr. Allen owns a fine home at 1409 East Superior street, where he has lived during the past fifteen years.
John Allen
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SAMUEL W. LUNDALL has been identified in a business way with Chisholm since 1905. He was a merchant in the little village at the time of the great fire of 1908, took part in the modern rebuilding and upbuild- ing, and has in fact witnessed the changes and transformations that have evolved a modern town out of a mining camp.
Mr. Lundall has effected in his personal destiny changes and develop- ments hardly less noteworthy than those of this village. He had few opportunities and advantages when a boy, and his resolution and persist- ence have been responsible for the more than ordinary success he has achieved. His birth occurred on a farm in Washington County, Min- nesota, October 24, 1862. His parents, Munse and Dorothy Lundall, were natives of Sweden and were pioneers in Minnesota territory, coming to this country in 1858, not long after their marriage. The father worked as a farmer in Washington County until he was able to acquire a farm of his own. The Lundalls were in Minnesota when the entire territory had a sparse population, and when the danger of Indian uprising had by no means passed. There were evidences of pioneer hardship and conflict when Samuel W. Lundall came to years of recollection and conscious memory. He was one of four children. He had very limited opportunities in such schools as existed at the time, and there was no period from early boyhood when he was free from the responsibility of work. He was only three years old when his father died, and at the age of nine he was working as a dishwasher in a mining camp at Hink- ley and subsequently did a great variety of rough and uncongenial work in lumber camps and saw mills until he was about seventeen years of age, when he began learning upholstering and the furniture business and mat- tress making with John S. Bradstreet, one of the pioneer manufacturers in that line in the northwest. Mr. Bradstreet's establishment was at Minneapolis, and Mr. Lundall was employed there and in other concerns, and in a modest way was in business for himself prior to 1905, when he came to Chisholm. Here he entered the furniture and undertaking business and later opened a stock of general house furnishings, and has seen his business steadily grow and prosper.
A good business man, he has been equally a good citizen, and for two years served as trustee of the village. He is a Republican in politics. In 1902 Mr. Lundall married Mrs. Anna (Ryder) Rupp. She has one son, Edmond Joseph Rupp.
ALBERT W. SHAW, M. D. Professionally identified with the Range district of northern Minnesota for over twenty years, Dr. Shaw is physi- cian and surgeon for practically all the mining companies operating in the Buhl district, enjoys a large private practice, and is founder and active head of a splendidly equipped and efficient private hospital at Buhl. He is a cultured gentleman as well as a high class physician and surgeon, possesses a strong sense of civic duty, and also has a keen appreciation of the importance of the proper development of the coming generation.
He was born at Levant, Maine, February 26, 1871, and represents old New England stock. His father, William Abbott Shaw, was born at Exeter, Maine, January 3, 1825, and devoted his active years chiefly to the tilling of the rough and rugged hills of New England. In 1849 he joined the flood of gold seekers on the way to California, and altogether made three trips to the gold coast. On one of these he walked across the Isthmus of Panama. He spent much time in other sections of the west. He was in Minnesota at the beginning of the Civil war, and in 1862, immediately after the massacre at New Ulm, he drove an ox team in company with a party of about four hundred men from St. Cloud to the newly discovered mines of the northwest at what is now Helena, Montana. He spent his last days at Buhl, Minnesota, where he died
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February 19, 1903. At Levant, Maine, he married Miss Julia Ett Cloud- lan, who was born at Garland, Maine, April 8, 1839, and was likewise of New England ancestry.
Third in a family of six children, Albert W. Shaw acquired most of his early education at Levant, Maine, but finished the work of the grade schools at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his parents lived for seven years. Cambridge is the seat of Harvard University, and he graduated from a preparatory school there. In 1888, at the age of seventeen, he came to Minneapolis, and during the next seven years was engaged in the grocery business for himself. In pursuance of a long cherished plan he entered the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1895, and was graduated in 1899. His proficiency was recognized and for three years he held the post of assistant prosector and assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School. Soon after graduating in May, 1899, he came to Eveleth, Minnesota, as assistant to Dr. C. W. More, and on September 9, 1901, came to Buhl as company physician for the Sharon Ore Company and the Drake-Stratton Company. Soon afterward he was given the additional duties of local surgeon for the Mesaba and Great Northern Railroad, and about that time engaged in a general practice, having equipped a small hospital of his own. He is now the senior physician and surgeon for all the mining companies around Buhl and as a means of handling to better advantage his growing surgical practice he built in September, 1918, the handsome hospital, a brick building advantageously located, containing thirty-six beds, and with all modern facilities, including X-Ray apparatus, diagnostic laboratories and fully appointed operating room. The hospital has a staff of four physicians, Drs. S. M. Johnson, W. W. Weber, E. C. Smith and G. R. Allaben, and has also three trained nurses. Dr. Shaw is a member of the Range Medical Society of St. Louis County, the State and American Medical Associations and the Association of Railway Surgeons. He has taken much interest in local affairs since coming to northern Minnesota, and was a member of the township board nine years. He is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, being affiliated with Hematite Lodge No. 274, A. F. and A. M., and has also attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. In politics he is a Republican, and he is a member of the Episcopal Church. September 24, 1902, he married Miss Anna Laura Purdy, of Logansport, Indiana. She was born January 31, 1877, and represents a Revolutionary family and is a member of the D. A. R. To their marriage were born three children, Lewis Preston, on December 23, 1904 ; Charlotte Rosamond, on May 10, 1908; and Jean, on January 27, 1916.
LEROY SALSICH, who has spent much of his adult life on the iron ranges of northern Minnesota, was born at Hartland in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, December 20, 1879, oldest of the five children of Hamilton E. and Jane W. ( Bourne) Salsich.
LeRoy Salsich attended the grade schools of his native town, also the East and South Side High Schools of Milwaukee, and in 1897 entered the University of Wisconsin, where he was graduated with the Bachelor of Science degree in 1901. A young man of university training, he came at once to northern Minnesota, and for a brief time was in the employ of the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines at Duluth. Since then his service has been continuous with the Oliver Iron Mining Company. In 1902 he was appointed chief engineer for this corporation for the Hibbing district, was transferred to Coleraine in April, 1905, and there served as chief engineer, was superintendent of the Holman Mine in 1906, assistant general superintendent of that district in 1911, and became its general superintendent in June, 1913. He was a resident of Coleraine
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ten years, and during that time took a keen interest in the upbuilding of the community. Mr. Salsich came to Hibbing to make his home in 1918, and since May of that year has been assistant district manager for the Oliver Iron Mining Company.
He is a member of various technical societies, and is a Republican in politics. In August, 1904, he married Miss Elisabeth Frazer, of Duluth.
WILLIAM MARSHALL TAPPAN, general superintendent of the Oliver Iron Mining Company at Hibbing, first entered the service of this great corporation twenty-two years ago as an office man, and with accumulating experience and knowledge has qualified himself for some of the higher executive responsibilities.
Mr. Tappan was born in Cleveland, Ohio, October 4, 1875, a son of William M. and Adaline (Allen) Tappan. The Tappens were early Dutch colonists on Manhattan Island, and the family has furnished many people of distinction in American life and affairs. Mr. Tappan through his mother is a direct descendant of General Ethan Allen of the Revolutionary war. William M. Tappan, Sr., was a civil engineer and a ship builder, served as a soldier of the Union army during the Civil war and died in Cleveland March 20, 1915, at the age of eighty-seven. The mother survived until April 14, 1921.
William Marshall Tappan was reared in his native city, graduated from high school and spent three years in Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio. His first experience was in the office of Corrigan, Ives & Com- pany at Ramsey, Michigan, one year, following which he was employed as an accountant in the offices of the Carnegie Steel Company at Pittsburgh for nearly three years, and he spent about three years on the Pacific Coast, most of the time in charge of a salmon canning factory at Astoria, Oregon. Mr. Tappan returned east in the fall of 1898, and soon afterward entered the service of the Oliver Iron Mining Company at Ironwood, Michigan. Four months later the company trans- ferred him to Iron River as office manager, and in the fall of 1903 they sent him to Hibbing, where he has had his business headquarters ever since. He came to Hibbing as chief clerk in the offices of the corporation, in 1905 was promoted to superintendent of the Pillsbury, Glen and Clark Mines, in January, 1906, was made superintendent of the Hull-Rust Mines, handling the duties of that position for five years, and in 1911 was promoted to assistant general superintendent of the Hibbing district under William J. West. Mr. West is now a resident of Virginia, Minnesota, and was succeeded as general superintendent of the Hibbing district by Mr. Tappan.
Mr. Tappan, though one of the leading industrial executives of the Range country, is an exceptionally modest man, and by his manner seldom betrays any of the heavy weight of responsibilities he bears. He is a member of the Commercial Club, the Kiwanis Club, the Algonquin Club, is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner and in 1914 was worshipful master of Mesaba Lodge No. 255, A. F. and A. M., is a member of the Episcopal Church and gives his political support to the Republican party.
Mr. Tappan married Miss Gertrude Goss, of Cleveland, Ohio. Their three sons are William Hardesty, Warren Marshall and John Goss Tappan.
CHARLES BAXTER came to Duluth nearly thirty years ago, and almost from the beginning his name has been familiar in the great lumber indus- tries centering in the city. Mr. Baxter is now the active head of the
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Baxter Sash & Door Company, one of the chief organizations for the manufacture of finished products in the city.
Mr. Baxter was born at Leith, Scotland, January 9, 1865, and has achieved independence as a manufacturer and business man after a rather humble boyhood and youth. He attained the equivalent of a common school education in Scotland, and in 1885, at the age of twenty, came to America and for two years lived in Chicago, where he followed his trade as a carpenter. From Chicago he moved to Winona, Minnesota, worked as a carpenter there two years, and was then at St. Paul, an employe of the Bohn Manufacturing Company until 1892.
On removing to Duluth in 1892 Mr. Baxter was connected with one of the great lumber firms of that time, the Scott-Graff Lumber Company. In 1900 he withdrew and with P. C. Ouellette established a new firm known as the Ouellette-Baxter Company, operating a lumber mill for the manufacture of sash and door and interior work. In 1908 the firm name was changed to the Baxter Sash and Door Company, and that is the title at present.
The first year the business production was valued at about fifty thou- sand dollars. Now the aggregate annual volume runs over three hundred thousand dollars. The facilities are strictly confined to the manufacture of lumber, sash, doors and interior trim, and this material is shipped over the states of Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan and as far west as Butte, Montana. The factory is equipped with some of the finest and most modern machinery for mill work, all the machinery being electrically driven. The factory and warehouses cover about five acres of ground on the Northern Pacific & Soo Railroads, and the force of men employed, many of them expert workers, numbers about one hundred.
Mr. Baxter has thus built up a big industry, and that has been his chief contribution to Duluth, since he has never cared for the vexations and cares of politics. He is an independent voter, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. He married at Superior, Wisconsin, in 1898, and has two children, Marion and Donald.
MAX H. BARBER has spent nearly all his life in the mining districts of northern Michigan and Minnesota, is a civil engineer by early train- ing and profession, but practically ever since leaving university has been connected with the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, for which he is now district superintendent of the Minnesota properties, with headquarters at South Hibbing.
Mr. Barber was born at Vermontville, Michigan, November 13, 1879, son of M. F. and Agnes ( Hayden) Barber. His father from 1893 until his death in 1901 had charge of the Lake Superior Powder Company's business on the Mesaba Range. He died at Virginia.
The early years of Max H. Barber were spent at Ishpeming, and he graduated from high school in 1898. Not long afterward he entered the University of Michigan and was in the civil engineering department, taking his degree Civil Engineer in 1903. He at once became identified with the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, serving in the engineering department until 1911, and since then in the operating department. Mr. Barber is a member of the American Mining and Metallurgical Engineers Society and belongs to a number of technical organizations. He is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Episcopal Church. January 2, 1907, he married Dorice H. Wood, of Iron Mountain, Michigan.
JAMES H. McNIVEN, for fourteen years a resident of Chisholm, is recognized as one of the foremost citizens of the village, and is one of those progressive, virile and efficient characters that succeed in any
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locality and under all circumstances by the very force of a compelling personality. Mr. McNiven is a native of Canada, having been born in the Province of Ontario December 10, 1879. He is a son of James H. and Minerva (Mount) McNiven, farming people of Canada, coming of Scotch descent.
Growing up in his native country, James H. McNiven, the younger, attended the country schools and graduated from high school in 1896. Later he became a student of the Hamilton Normal School, and after he had completed its courses, entered the educational field and for four years was engaged in teaching school. Leaving Canada in 1902 for the United States, he found employment for his talents as an instructor of a commercial course in the Duluth Business University, and remained at Duluth, Minnesota, in that capacity for two, years. However, he is a man of too much energy and determination to rest content with the opportunities offered in the calling of a teacher, and sought another opening with the International Harvester Company and for six months held the position of credit man for western Canada, with headquarters at Regina.
During the time he had been at Duluth Mr. McNiven had found that he preferred the United States to Canada for business purposes, and so accepted the offer made to him by A. M. Chisholm to enter his employ and look after his town site business, and he remained with and organized the McNiven Land Company, and is now engaged in con- that gentleman until 1916, in 1906 locating permanently at Chisholm. In 1916 Mr. McNiven bought Mr. Chisholm's interest in the land business ducting the affairs of this flourishing concern.
When he first came to the United States Mr. McNiven took out naturalization papers, and since he became a citizen has been called upon to hold various offices. In 1913 and 1914 he was a member of the Village Council of Chisholm, and in 1916 was elected to the Lower House of the Minnesota State Assembly and served during 1917 and 1918. While in the Legislature Mr. McNiven took a very active part in the sessions, and some very constructive measures were passed through his support. He is a member of the Chisholm Commercial and Kiwanis Clubs. He belongs to the Masons and Elks, having attained to the thirty-second degree and the Mystic Shrine in the former fraternity.
On October 25, 1910, Mr. McNiven was united in marriage with Miss Effie Van Fleet, of Kilbride, Ontario, and they have one daughter, Margaret., Mrs. McNiven is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. McNiven is a man who possess the caliber of brain, strength of will and indomitableness of ambition which make anything possible. He is a recognized authority on public questions and a close student of politics. Probably no better man could have been selected by Mr. Chisholm to shape the destiny of the new village, for he possesses the grit, vision and really marvelous ability to overcome obstacles, with- out which characteristics no one could hope to succeed in such a project. The people of Chisholm appreciate the value of the services he has and is rendering, and look to him to further represent their interests in affairs of public moment.
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