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 40
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JAMES W. OSBORNE. It is appropriate to refer to James W. Osborne as one of the oldest members of the Duluth bar. He was admitted to practice in that city thirty years ago, and while his office has not been in Duluth proper except for a few years, he has practiced always in that territory immediately adjacent to the Head of the Lakes, and nearly all his interests identify him with the city of Duluth.
He was born in Eagle Harbor, Keweenaw County, Michigan, Novem- ber 4, 1862, son of Robert and Mary Osborne. His father was a native of the north of Ireland, while his mother was born in Cornwall, England. Robert Osborne was a carpenter by trade and came to America early in life. For a time he lived at Warren, Ohio, and in 1847 moved to the copper country of northern. Michigan. His home was at Superior from 1857 to 1859 and again from 1870 to 1878. He did some of the first building construction in Superior. He and his wife spent their last days in Calumet, Michigan, where he died June 20, 1910, and his wife April 18, 1918. Of their ten children seven are still living, James W. being the sixth in age.
James W. Osborne, while he was not able to attend school consecu- tively and had to pay his own way for several years, acquired a liberal education as the foundation of his professional career. He attended school at Eagle Harbor, Michigan, Superior, Wisconsin, Calumet, Mich- igan, and one of the best known preparatory schools in the east, Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. From there he entered Boston University Law School at Boston, Massachusetts, and gained his LL. B. degree in 1890. Mr. Osborne was admitted to the bar in Duluth in November, 1890, but after about six months practice in that city moved to Superior, where he was an active member of the bar until June, 1901. At that date he transferred his offices and residence to Ely, Minnesota, but in October, 1915, returned to Duluth and has since enjoyed an exten- sive general practice. While at Ely he spent two years as judge of the Municipal Court.
Judge Osborne was the first to join the Kiwanis Club in Duluth, and is secretary of that organization. He is a member of the Commer- cial Club, is a Republican, attends the Unitarian Church and fraternally is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen of America and Loyal Legion. Judge Osborne first saw Duluth in May, 1870, just half a century ago, and the changes noted in his career have never taken him far from this city. The family home while he was growing up was at Superior, Wisconsin, until 1878, when the family moved to Calumet, Michigan. Some of the first work he did on leaving home was in a saw mill that occupied ground where the home of the Duluth Boat Club is now.
In Superior, Wisconsin, February 23, 1907, Judge Osborne married Miss Cordelia DeLong, of Superior.
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A. BERNARD GUSTAFSON. One of the progressive business men of St. Louis County is A. Bernard Gustafson, manager of the Architects and Engineers Supply Company of Duluth, a man whose persistent efforts, inventive genius and technical ability have brought to him the prosperity which is today his. He has not only been energetic in advanc- ing his own interests, but he has ever stood ready to do what he could in pushing forward the wheels of progress and advancing commercial prosperity in this community, and his career, both public and private, has been one worthy of the high esteem which those who know him freely accord.
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A. Bernard Gustfason is a native son of the city still honored by his citizenship, having been born here on the 1st day of March, 1893, and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Gustafson, the former of whom is still living, at the age of fifty-six years. A. Bernard Gustafson, who is the only child born to his parents, received his educational training in the public schools of Duluth and Minneapolis. He then spent five and a half years as a draftsman in the offices of leading engineers in the city of Duluth, and at the end of that time went into business for himself, his concern, known as Duluth Blue Prints, soon becoming widely and favor- ably known among all vocations having use for prints of that sort. In 1913 the business was incorporated and in 1917 it was consolidated with other interests under the style of the Architects and Engineers Supply Company, of which Mr. Gustafson has since been manager and major stockholder. The company is equipped for the quick production of blue prints, blue line prints and black line prints, and also make a specialty of mapping, drafting and coloring, so that it is in the fullest sense a "house of service" for architects, engineers, draftsmen and surveyors. They also carry a full supply of all materials used in the professions mentioned, and verify in the fullest way their slogan, "Our business is everything that our name implies." Their business has steadily grown until it now aver- ages over thirty thousand dollars annually. They are the originators of a new patent washing and drying process which greatly simplifies and expedites their work.
Politically Mr. Gustafson is a Democrat. He is a member of the Masonic Order, belonging to Trinity Lodge No. 282. He is a man of fine personal qualities of character and genial in his relations with others, and therefore he enjoys to a marked degree the esteem and good will of all who know him.
TIMOTHY P. CORY. In the safe shelter of home a boy of twelve years can look forward indifferently for a few years into the future, but when it is a matter of self dependence the outlook is apt to assume other propor- tions. When despite this disadvantage in youth industry leads to better things and perseverance and integrity are finally rewarded, the interest- ing and encouraging story should be related, for in many essentials the same conditions face other youths that met Timothy P. Cory, one of Buhl's most prominent citizens, some forty-five years ago.
Timothy P. Cory was born September 4, 1863, at Madison, Wiscon- sin. His father, Thomas G. Cory, was born in New Hampshire, coming of English ancestry. An old family record told of two brothers bearing the name of Corey, who immigrated to the United States from England, and, for reasons of their own, on separating decided to spell their names differently, the father of Mr. Cory belonging to the branch that eliminated the "e" in the name. Thomas G. Cory married Elmina Whitas, who was of Welsh extraction but was born in Ohio. Of their family of thirteen children Timothy P. was the fifth in order of birth. He had country! school privileges until he was twelve years old; in the meanwhile having assisted on the home farm. The family was large and as his services. were not needed at home he determined to strike out for himself, finding his first employers among the farmers of Dunn County, in which neigh- borhood he remained for two years, although the life of a farmer did not particularly appeal to him.
When fourteen years old Mr. Cory made his way to Cumberland in Barron County with the idea of finding a different field of work, accept- ing the best job that presented itself, that of helper in the engine room of a shingle mill, and for the next five years worked in some capacity in
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shingle mills all through that lumber section. Having accumulated a little capital by this time, he invested and opened a notion store on a small scale at St. Cloud, Minnesota, which he conducted for one year and then returned to Wisconsin and for the next three years conducted furniture stores at Rhinelander and Woodruff, demonstrating the fact that if given opportunity he could prove successful in the mercantile line. When the present town of Hibbing, Minnesota, was started he moved to that place and opened a notion store, but the Indian uprising about that time at Cass. Lake led to his removal to Cass Lake, where the chances for more ventures were greater, but which proved an unfortunate venture, as that village was shortly afterward visited by two fires, in both of which he suffered, practically losing everything.
In the following year Mr. Cory married and in September, 1900, removed with his wife to the newly started village of Buhl, which has continued to be his place of residence ever since. Here he opened a furniture and hardware store, to which he shortly afterward added under- taking. The first death in Buhl was that of an infant, and in the depth of winter. The heavy snow prevented the bringing to the village a casket, and it fell to his lot to fashion one, which was deftly trimmed by Mrs. Cory, and in this enclosure the babe was tenderly laid away. Mr. Cory continued in the undertaking business until January, 1919, when he disposed of that branch of his business but continued along another line, in which he had made some headway, that of dealing in real estate, and since then he has expanded this enterprise into a large and profitable business. For a time he was president, secretary and treasurer of the Helmer Exploration Company, which prospected along the Cuyuna Range. At the present time he is rather extensively inter- ested in mining properties and is a large stockholder in the American Manganese Manufacturing Company.
At Duluth, Minnesota, February 6, 1899, Mr. Cory was married to Miss Elizabeth Speagle, who is of Irish extraction but was born at West Port, Ontario, Canada.
Ever since coming to Buhl Mr. Cory has been a man of public impor- tance. He had much to do with establishing sound enterprises here, served as the second president of the village and for one term was village treas- urer. At present he is serving in his second term as village trustee, having also served three years as clerk and treasurer of Great Scott Town- ship. He is identified with the Loyal Order of Moose at Buhl. In poli- tics he is a Republican, and during the great war was a member of the Council of Defense.
JOHN KETOLA has been a resident of the Mesaba Range district of Minnesota since he was a lad of fourteen years, and it has been entirely due to his own ability, energy and initiative that he has advanced to impregnable vantage ground as one of the leading merchants of the city of Virginia, where he now has a large and well equipped general mer- chandise establishment.
At the age of fifteen years John Ketola found employment in the capacity of skip-tender at the Franklin Mine, and later he passed two summers as a workman on farms in North Dakota. Thereafter he became a clerk in the general store of the Franklin Mine, and he gained also a full share of experience by working in various mines of this dis- trict and by clerking in stores at Virginia. In 1905 Mr. Ketola became associated with others in establishing a general merchandise business at Virginia, and one year later he purchased the interest of his partners. Since that time, save for a brief interval during which one of his brothers
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was his partner, he has individually continued the business, which under his vigorous and effective management has grown to large volume and which now involves his conducting the well equipped store at Virginia.
Mr. Ketola has been appreciative of the advantages that have been afforded him in this section of Minnesota and has taken loyal interest in all things touching the welfare and advancement of his home city .. He served six years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Virginia Public Library and has been liberal in the support of measures and enterprises tending to advance the civic and material wellbeing of the community. His political faith is that of the Republican party, he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he and his wife hold membership in the Unitarian Church of Virginia. At the time of the World war he was an active and valued member of the local organization of the United States Defense League.
SAMUEL S. BLACKLOCK, M. D. One of the professional men longest in service on the Mesaba Range, Doctor Blacklock has been practicing medicine at Hibbing for eighteen years and his services and abilities have more and more brought him special prestige at a competent surgeon.
Doctor Blacklock was born in Jackson County, Illinois, December 22. 1874, son of Dr. Robert B. and Mary (Haugh) Blacklock. His father was born in Scotland, came to this country in 1859, and as a capable country physician practiced near Duquoin, Illinois, the rest of his life.
Samuel S. Blacklock grew up near Vergennes, Illinois, attended public schools, spent one year in the Northern Illinois College at Dixon, another year at the Southern Illinois Normal School at Carbondale, and acquired his liberal and professional education in intervals of self supporting employment. He graduated in 1898 from the Northern Indiana Normal School of Valparaiso University with the degrees B. S. and Ph.G. He then entered Rush Medical College at Chicago and completed the medical course and was graduated in 1901: In the spring of the following year he came to Hibbing, and from the beginning has found his professional services in great demand. He has been continuously identified with Rood Hospital, one of the substantial institutions of Hibbing, and for the past seven or eight years has been the surgeon who has performed many of the operations in that hospital. Doctor Blacklock went abroad in 1908 and pursued postgraduate studies in the University of Vienna. He is a member of the St. Louis County and State Medical Societies, the Ameri- can Medical Association, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. He is also a member of the Kiwanis Club and the Algonquin Club.
O. O. WHITNEY has concentrated practically all his efforts and expe- riences in one line, in the service of the great meat and food packing and distribution industry. For ten years past he has been a leading figure in that business at Duluth as general manager of the Duluth house of Decker & Sons.
Mr. Whitney was born at Sedalia, Missouri, November 30, 1877, a son of H. P. and Hulda ( Fults) Whitney. He is of English ancestry in the paternal line and German through his mother. His father was a farmer by occupation, lived for a number of years at Sedalia, Missouri. and finally at Kansas City, where he died in 1918.
O. O. Whitney, the youngest of three children, acquired his early education in the public schools of Kansas City, Missouri. At the age of seventeen he began. working as a delivery boy in the Kansas City plant of Swift & Company. He was given promotions and for four years
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remained in the service of that great packing company as an employe in branch houses. Later he worked for Armour & Company as cashier in branch houses in St. Louis and Kansas City. After five years with the Armours he went to Salt Lake City and identified himself with a smaller packing house known as the Inter-Mountain Packing Company. He was with that corporation until 1910, when he severed his connection and came to Duluth, and on December 5, 1910, assumed the management of the packing house of Decker & Sons on Michigan street.
This is one of the larger packing, produce and commission houses out- side of the "Big Five," and has branch houses in the cities of Duluth. Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Des Moines and Biriningham, Ala- bama. The business of the Duluth house under Mr. Whitney has aggre- gated sales of two million dollars. He has the general supervision of all the plant and branch activities, including the services of six or seven traveling representatives.
J. T. LUNCHE is manager of the Duluth branch of the Master Truck & Tractor Company at 106 East Superior street. Mr. Lunche has a thorough knowledge of the motor truck industry and has been responsi- ble for a rapid growth in the use of this well known truck for trans- portation and other industrial service both on the road and in the field.
He was born in Minneapolis February 22, 1890. His father, L. Lunche, has for many years been in the retail meat business at Min- neapolis and is still living, at the age of sixty-two. J. T. Lunche is the second of five children, and acquired a public school education, finishing the eighth grade of the Minneapolis public schools at the age of four- teen. He began his business experience in a grocery store, for two years was traveling salesman for a wholesale milling house, and on March 22, 1920. became manager of the Duluth branch of the Master Truck & Tractor Company.
The Master trucks are sold and used all over the United States, and have proved their adaptability to real service on the roads and thorough- fares of different sections of the country and have stood all the tests of hard usage. Mr. Lunche is a member of the Duluth Automobile Club and is a Republican in politics.
L. L. CULBERTSON. For at least a quarter of a century Mr. Culbertson has been doing the work of a man of affairs, largely in Duluth. He has been a civil engineer, a wholesale merchant, and for a number of years past has been active in the mineral and oil industries.
He was born in Clayton County, Iowa, April 9, 1876, a son of John T. and Orlena Kidner Culbertson. His father came from Pennsylvania has for many years been active in the lumber industry, chiefly as a timber cruiser, and in 1886 moved to Duluth and followed his business in the northern portions of Minnesota for many years. He is still living, at the age of seventy.
The oldest of three sons, L. L. Culbertson acquired a public school education, and was ten years of age when he came to Duluth. At the age of eighteen he was doing work with an engineering party. From the age of twenty-one to thirty-nine he was in the wholesale commission business and for the past five years has been in the mining and oil busi- ness, operating for himself and others in the regions of Minnesota and also as an explorer and developer of oil in some of the noted oil dis -. tricts of Kentucky.
Mr. Culbertson is active in the various branches of York Rite Masonry, including the Royal Arch Chapter, Council, Knights Templar Command-
Vol. III-18
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ery, and the Mystic Shrine and Order of Elks. March 21, 1903, he married Louise Grandy at Minneapolis. They have two sons, John Randolph, born in 1906, and William Harrison, born in 1909.
EDWARD H. MCINTYRE, M. D. The Mesaba Range claims as one of its representative physicians and surgcons the popular citizen whose name introduces this paragraph and who has been established in active general practice in this vital industrial region since 1912, with residence and pro- fessional headquarters in the city of Virginia. With marked skill in sur- gery Doctor McIntyre gives special attention to this branch of profes- sional service, and his liberality and progressiveness were significantly shown in his erection and equipping of a modern hospital at Virginia prior to his removal to this place. Upon his arrival he immediately opened this hospital, which has been of great value in the community, with thirty beds and with full equipment and accessories of a distinctly up-to-date institution of the kind. The service of the McIntyre Hospital is of the best, with Doctor McIntyre as chief surgeon and with a staff of three associate physicians and four trained nurses. This private hospital has provisions not only for the handling of general surgical and medical cases but also maintains a well appointed maternity department. Doctor McIntyre is chief surgeon also for the Virginia & Rainy Lake Lumber Company and the Mesaba Railroad, besides being local surgeon for the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Railroad.
Doctor McIntyre was born at Ransom, Illinois. December 16, 1876. and is a son of Nathaniel and Della (Howe) McIntyre, the former of whom was born in Londonderry, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish lineage, and the latter was born at Utica. New York. Nathaniel McIntyre not only became a prosperous farmer in Illinois but also achieved marked prestige in the legal profession, he having been for many years engaged in the active practice of law as a leading member of the bar in Illinois.
. The public schools of his native town afforded Doctor McIntyre his early education, and in 1896 he was graduated from Grier College, Hoopeston, Illinois, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. During the ensuing two years he pursued a pre-medical course at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, and in 1898 was matriculated in the celebrated Rush Medical College in the city of Chicago. In this institution he was gradu- ated as a member of the class of 1902 and duly received his degree of Doctor of Medicine. During his sophomore and junior years at Rush Doctor McIntyre served as prosector for Professor Arthur Bevan, M. D., and in his junior year received the Frier prize in recognition of his able thesis on obstetrics and gynecology. Of inestimable practical value was the experience which Doctor Mcintyre gained after his graduation by two years of service as an interne in St. Mary's Hospital, Chicago, in which institution he had wide and varied clinical advantages. From 1904 until 1907 the doctor was engaged in practices at Scanlon, Carlton County, Minnesota, and he then went to the Bahama Islands, where he continued in the successful practice of his profession until 1911 and where in the meanwhile he served as official physician for the English government. Upon his return to his native land he completed a year's post-graduate course in surgery in the city of Chicago, and at the expiration of this period, in 1912, came to Virginia, Minnesota, as previously noted. Here his success has been unqualified and he has secure status as one of the leading representatives of his profession in this section of the state. He is an active member of the St. Louis County Medical Society, the Minne- sota State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. The doctor maintains affiliation with Virginia Lodge No. 264, Ancient Free
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and Accepted Masons, as well as with the Duluth temple of the Mystic Shrine, and the Virginia lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Rotary Club at Virginia. His achievement in his pro- fession has gained for him the distinction of being a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
On the 16th of June, 1904, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor McIntyre to Miss Grace Garey, who was born at Rochester, this state, and who is a popular factor in the representative social activities of Virginia.
FRED R. MOTT. To be placed in charge as superintendent or assistant superintendent of such vast interests as those owned and controlled in the mining districts at Virginia, Minnesota, by the Oliver Iron Mining Company is proof without question of intelligence, sagacity, firmness, dependability and irreproachable character. The confidence of a large corporation like the above is not given heedlessly, hence the company has secured the services of high class men, thoroughly equipped for the demands made upon them. One of these trustworthy officials of this company is Fred R. Mott, who is assistant general superintendent in the Virginia district.
Fred R. Mott was born August 14, 1872, at Norwich, Ontario, Can- ada, the oldest of three children born to James and Mary ( Rammage) Mott, both of whom were born in Canada. The ancestors on the paternal side were Pennsylvania Dutch colonists who settled in Canada at the beginning of the Revolutionary war. The father followed farming all his life. On the maternal side the grandparents of Mr. Mott were Penn- sylvania Dutch and Scotch.
In boyhood Fred R. Mott attended the country schools near his father's farm, and in 1890 was graduated from the Simcoe High School. About that time he decided to make educational work his choice of a career, and to further prepare for the same he spent a year in a pre- paratory teacher's or normal school. For three years after that Mr. Mott devoted himself faithfully to his chosen profession, but, finding at the end of this period he was no further advanced than a country school teacher, he decided in 1895 to come to the United States, making his way to Duluth, Minnesota. A short time afterward he was found as an employe of the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mining Company at Mountain Iron, where he worked as a laborer until winter came on, when he went to Virginia, where he was employed at some drill work until spring, then returned to Duluth.
As Mr. Mott had not been reared to work of this kind it may be inferred that it was not altogether agreeable, but backed by perseverance and resolution he kept on and after reaching Duluth worked as an ore sampler on the docks until September, 1896, when the mines shut down and many worthy people in all trades were thrown out of employment. Mr. Mott returned then to his home in Canada and assisted his father on the farm through the winter, but when spring came he returned to his former work at Duluth. Times had not, however, appreciably improved in that city, and he soon went back to Mountain Iron, where he went to work as a lineman for the electric light company. In the spring of 1898 he became timekeeper at the Mountain Iron Mine and also did a certain amount of clerical work, and in the spring of 1900 was made chief clerk at the mine, in 1907 becoming superintendent at the operating end. When the mine was closed in 1909 he was transferred to the Alpena Mine at Virginia as superintendent. On January 1, 1911, he was made superin- tendent of the Hull Rust Mine at Hibbing, and in May, 1918, was ten-
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