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 41
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dered and accepted his present position of assistant general superintend- ent of the Oliver Iron Mining Company at Virginia.
Mr. Mott was married September 10, 1901, to Miss Laura J. Martin, who was born at Saint Ignace, Michigan, and they have two daughters, Marjory and June, aged respectively nine and five years.
In politics Mr. Mott is a Republican and actively interested in all the great public questions of the day. During the World war he accepted responsibilities of various kinds in the way of furthering patriotic move- ments and has the satisfaction of knowing that he never shirked a pub- lic duty. While a resident of Mountain Iron he served one term as presi- dent of the village and one term as a member of the School Board. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, belongs to the Elks and the Kiwanis Club at Virginia, and is a member of the Engineers' Club of Northern Minnesota.
R. J. RICH, present county surveyor of St. Louis County, has had a wide experience of fifteen years as civil engineer and surveyor, engaged in railroad, highway and other work in various sections of the country.
Mr. Rich is a native of northern Minnesota, born at Two Harbors April 21, 1887, son of George T. and Isabel M. (Grierson) Rich. His father, a native of Pennsylvania and now fifty-four years of age, is living at Duluth, to which city he came in 1872. As a young man he became an engineer in elevators and later a locomotive engineer. He began working for Lou Merritt in 1893, and at the present time is the oldest employe in years of service with the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Rail- way, being one of the locomotive engineers of that company. His wife, Isabel M. Grierson Rich, was born in Canada, of Scotch ancestry, a grandniece of Thomas Carlyle and daughter of George J. Grierson. Her parents moved to Duluth in 1874.
R. J. Rich is the oldest of four children, all of whom are living. He was educated in the grammar and high schools of Duluth and following his school work took up civil engineering and surveying, a profession he learned largely by practical experience. He has given all his time to the duties of his profession since 1905. He was connected with surveying crews for the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Railroad and Iron Range Railroad, and in 1908-10 spent two years in Oklahoma in charge of a drainage survey. For another two years, 1910-12, he had charge of a surveying party for the Winnipeg & Manitoba Railroad to Hudson's Bay.
From 1912 to 1918 Mr. Rich was district highway engineer for St. Louis County, his headquarters being in Duluth for two years and for four years at Eveleth. In November, 1918, he was elected to his present office as county surveyor.
Mr. Rich is a member of the Duluth Engineers' Club, the Range Engineers' Club, belongs to the Lion Club of Duluth, Eveleth Lodge No. 1161, Order of Elks, and the Lodge of Masons No. 310 at McComb, Oklahoma. He has always been a Republican and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. On July 2, 1914, at Proctor. Minnesota, he married Miss Mabelle R. Gibbs.
CAPT. CHARLES TREZONA. One of the very important men on the Ranges of northern Minnesota, Capt. Charles Trezona has been identified with mining activities there for over thirty years, and is now general superintendent for the Oliver Iron Mining Company on the Vermillion Range, with general headquarters at Ely.
Captain Trezona comes of a mining family and from one of the most famous mining districts in the world, Cornwall, England, where he was
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born September 8, 1863, son of William and Mariah Trezona. His father was a miner and the son began his experience around the mines of Cornwall when only ten years of age. In 1885, at the age of twenty- two, he came to the United States, and for about a year was in the Calumet Copper Mine and the Red Jacket Mine. After that until 1890 he was employed in the iron mines at Hurley, Wisconsin, and in 1890 paid his first visit to the Ely district of Minnesota. During 1892-94 he was shift boss at Wakefield, then with the Franklin group of mines at Virginia on the Mesaba Range, became mine superintendent, and in 1898 returned to Ely as captain of the Pioneer Mine for the Oliver Iron Mining Company. He was promoted to superintendent in 1900 and since 1902 has been general superintendent.
While these promotions indicate his skill and ability as miner and mine operator, Captain Trezona has likewise been keenly interested in the welfare and progress of his home locality. He has served as coun- cilman and mayor of Ely, also on the School Board and for a time was president of the board. He is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. At Hurley, Michigan, in 1888, he married Amelia Pederson, of Blair, Wisconsin. They are the parents of two sons and three daughters.
FRANK A. HOWERTON, mechanical foreman in charge of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad Shops at Biwabik, which district covers all of the Mesaba Range branch, with terminals at Biwabik, Eveleth and Vir- ginia, is one of the leading men of St. Louis County, and one whose prominence is recognized by his associates. He was born at Lawrence- burg, Indiana, December 19, 1873, a son of Francis D. and Mary E. (Abbott) Howerton. F. D. Howerton was born in Ripley County, Indi- ana, and his wife was born in Dearborn County, that same state. His death occurred in 1911, when he was sixty-seven years old, his widow surviving him for a year and then passing away in 1912, when sixty-three years old. For many years he was engaged in farming, and was a man of means when he died. Of his three sons two now survive, Frank A. and his brother, Emory C. Howerton, who is a master mechanic with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad at Alamosa, Colorado. In 1874 the family moved to Farmers City, Piatt County, Illinois, and to Odell, Gage County, Nebraska, in 1884.
The schooldays of Frank A. Howerton were passed in Piatt County, Illinois, and Gage County, Nebraska, but he left school when he was fifteen years old to go to work on a stock farm in the latter state. Later he was employed in several capacities, including that of a clerk in a hotel and as a gasmaker, and then became fireman on the Kansas City Excel- sior Railroad, now the Wabash. A year later, in 1900, he came with his brother, Emory C. Howerton, to the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad, and was first stationed at Ely. Later he was made foreman, and in 1901 was appointed mechanical foreman, with headquarters at Biwabik, and still later advanced to his present very responsible position. He is a man who has justified the confidence placed in him, and under his capable management the shops are in excellent condition.
On December 3, 1895, Mr. Howerton was married to Minnie Mont- gomery, of Kidder, Missouri, and they became the parents of eight chil- dren, six of whom are now living, namely: Earl, Glenn, Virgil, Mabel, Paul, Clyde, Orville and George, the last two being those who are deceased.
Soon after war was declared during the World war Glenn Hower- ton enlisted in Company F at Eveleth, and was sent to Camp Cody, Minnesota. Not long thereafter he with sixty others was transferred
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to the artillery branch of the service and was sent overseas, where he remained for two years. Although in three major engagements, he was not wounded. His duties took him all over France and Belgium, and he was also in England. After his honorable discharge from the army he returned home.
Mr. Howerton is a member of Diamond Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Biwabik, in which he has passed all of the chairs, and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and was promoted to member- ship in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. A natural mechanic, he has found congenial employment in work which had to do with machinery, and he is recognized as one of the most dependable men in the employ of his road. As a citizen he measures up to high standards, although his civic service has been rendered in a private rather than public capacity, and he has always been a friend of the public schools and anxious to do all in his power to improve them. During the late war he bought bonds and stamps and contributed to all of the war organizations to the full extent of his means, striving to bear his part in the work of supporting the administration's war policies.
REV. FRANK MIHELCIC is one of the young and enthusiastic priests performing the arduous labor of his church on the Northern Ranges, and is assistant pastor in charge of St. Anthony de Padua Catholic Church at Ely.
He was born in the village of Macklesk, Carniola, Slovenia, October 25. 1892. His father, John Mihelcic, has been a Slovenian farmer all his active life, and with his wife and two daughters is still living on his estate in Slovenia at the age of seventy-six. Several of the children are now in the United States. John came many years ago and is now a retired business man at Cleveland, Ohio. Louis has a grocery store at Lorain, Ohio. Mrs. Frances Antoncich lives at Ely and Jennie Speck is a resident of Cleveland. Angelo has just recently come to the United States and lives with his brother in Cleveland.
Frank Mihelcic came to America in 1910, when he was eighteen years of age. In his native land he had attended the grade schools and five years in the gymnasium or college. In June, 1910, he entered the Jesuit College at Cleveland, and after one year came to the northwest and at St. Paul fitted himself for the priesthood in St. Paul's Seminary, spending two years in the philosophic course and four years in the study of theology. He was ordained by the Most Rev. John Ireland, and was a member of the last class ordained by the late archbishop.
Father Mihelcic remained at Duluth for three months and since then his labors have been at Ely. He has all the talents that fit him for work in the cosmopolitan population of the Iron Range. Though unable to speak a word of English when he came to America he now has fluent command of that language and of several others.
AUGUST J. FENSKE. Several of those acts that constitute the begin- ning of the historical record of Ely were performed by the veteran merchant and citizen August J. Fenske. He built the first frame house in Ely in September, 1887, and also opened the first hardware and furni- ture store, while Mrs. Fenske, his wife, taught the first school in the new town. There has not been a year since the founding of the village in which Mr. Fenske has not imparted some of his energy and public spirit to the betterment of the community.
He was born at Marquette, Michigan, July 12, 1863, son of John and Annie Fenske. His parents soon after their marriage left Germany
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and came to Michigan, where his father was a mine worker. August J. Fenske was reared in Marquette and left school there to learn the tinner's trade. Even after becoming a partner in the business at Ely he worked at the bench in the tinshop for a number of years. Mr. Fenske knows by personal experience and observation many of the events which brought this section of the Range country into touch with the outside world. Before there was a single line of railroad he walked from Two Harbors to Tower. For two and a half years he was employed in the Sawbridge store as a tinner. With the opening of the Chandler Mine at Ely he was one of the first on the ground in 1887. He engaged in busi- ness under the firm name of Fenske & Lawrence. Their first store was burned eighteen months later, but was at once rebuilt and reopened. In 1900 Mr. Fenske acquired his partner's interest and for over twenty years has been the active head of his mercantile enterprise.
For two years he was alderman of Ely and for the past twelve years has given much of his time and thought to the work of the Ely School Board, and for two years of that time has served as chairman of the board. When. the village of Merritt, Wisconsin, was started he was elected president. Mr. Fenske is an independent Republican in politics and a member of the Knights of Pythias.
In 1892 he married Miss Ella Wilson, of Mount Clemens, Michigan. She was a college graduate, a very cultured and talented woman, and not only taught the first but also the second school in Ely. The entire community mourned her death, which occurred May 1, 1911. In 1915 Mr. Fenske married Emma Wilson, a sister of his first wife. He has two children, Earl and Elanie. The son is associated with his father in business.
JAMES I. LAING. An important share of the volume of mercantile transactions in Ely during the past decade has been through the medium of the Laing Hardware Company. James I. Laing has been manager of this business since the company bought a previously established concern in 1910. The members of the company are Peter, Hugh B. and James I. Laing. The first two are uncles of the manager of the business.
James I. Laing was born in Papineauville, Canada, October 1, 1884. His father was a native of Scotland and was a child when his parents immigrated to Quebec. His life has been spent in the industrious occu- pation of a farmer and he is now living at Buckingham, Quebec.
James I. Laing grew up on his father's farm and acquired a good education, finishing his course in the Buckingham High School at the age of eighteen, after which he took special training for business in a private school. On leaving school he removed to Cobalt, Canada, and from there came into the States at Gladstone, Michigan, where he was associated with his uncle in the hardware business. In 1910 he removed to Ely and has been responsible manager of the Laing Hardware Com- pany ever since. He is a thorough business man and an equally good citizen.
In 1908 Mr. Laing married Beatrice Potter, daughter of George Potter, formerly of Buckingham and now of Vancouver, Canada. They have two children, Anna Janet and Frank E. The family are members of the Presbyterian Church and Mr. Laing is a trustee of the church at Ely. He is a member of the Commercial Club and is affiliated with the Masonic Order, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias.
PAUL DAY WILLARD. A mining engineer whose experience and service have brought him growing prominence in the Range country of
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Minnesota during the past twelve or thirteen years, Paul Day Willard represents the Day Development Company at Hibbing, and is a member of a pioneer family of this section of the great northwest country.
He was born at Minneapolis October 27, 1882, a son of David and Cora (Day) Willard, his father a native of Wisconsin and his mother of Minnesota. David Willard was one of the early lumbermen operating in northern Minnesota. He was a partner in the firm of J. W. Day & Company, the senior member of which was his wife's father. J. W. Day and his brothers Lorenzo D. and Harry H. Day acquired great tracts of land in Minnesota, at one time owning about ninety thousand acres of stumpage, and a large portion of this was in the Range district of St. Louis County. While this timber was being converted into mer- chantable lumber David Willard spent much of his time in St. Louis County, and operated the leading lumber industry in this section of the state prior to 1893. David Willard is still living at Duluth, but his wife died in 1919. Of their five children three are still living.
Paul D. Willard of Hibbing, the only son and next oldest of the children, had his home in Minneapolis to the age of eighteen and then moved with his parents to Riverside, California, where he graduated from high school in 1902. He then entered Columbia University in New York, taking the course in mining engineering for two years. He was out of school for a year in order to get some practical field experience, and did field work in various iron, coal, copper. lead and silver districts throughout the country. Returning to Columbia, he graduated in min- ing engineering in 1907 and in November of the same year located at Hibbing, from which point as headquarters he has practiced his pro- fession over the Iron Range district, and has also directed the affairs of the Day Development Company.
Mr. Willard is a member of the Presbyterian Church, is a Republi- can, and is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Algonquin Club of Hibbing. March 25, 1908, he married Miss Ada Adair. Her father is A. A. Adair, a lawyer of Riverside, California. They have two children. Jean-Adair and Paul D., Jr.
GEORGE B. HUGHES. Highway engineer for the Fourth District of St. Louis County, George B. Hughes is a practical man in the engineer- ing service. He was in railway engineering for a number of years, subse- quently a contractor, later with the State Highway Department, and for four years has been highway engineer, with headquarters at Ely.
Mr. Hughes was born at Portage, Wisconsin, July 23, 1880, son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Macartney) Hughes, the former a native of Dodge County, Wisconsin, and the latter of Buffalo, New York.
George B. Hughes grew up at Portage, attended high school there, and at the age of eighteen became a locomotive fireman with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. For a few months prior to that he had worked in a sawmill in northern Wisconsin. After a service of two years as a fireman he joined the engineering department of the St. Paul road as a chainman, and was with that company ten years, during a period of great construction activity. He was promoted to assistant engi- neer and spent several years in the Dakotas and Minnesota in charge of construction.
In February, 1917, he became road engineer for the Fourth District of St. Louis County and has made the surveys and supervised the con- struction of many miles of fine automobile roads in that district.
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In 1903 he married Miss Jennie Carnegie, daughter of John Carnegie of Portage, Wisconsin. They have six children : Jean, Dorothy, George, John, David and Marjorie.
ANTON I. LOPP, who is successfully engaged in the grocery and meat business at Gilbert, is a worthy representative of the younger business element of St. Louis County. To a very considerable extent it is this element in any community, especially outside of the large cities, which infuses spirit and zest into the activities of the place. It is this element, whose entrance upon the arena of active life dates back only several decades, which monopolizes most of the vigor, zeal and pushing energy which keep the nerves of the commercial world ramifying through all the lesser towns of the country strung to the full tension of strenuous endeavor.
Mr. Lopp was born at Slavonia, Austria, October 18, 1888, a son of John and Cecelia (Komotar) Lopp, the latter of whom died in her native Slavonia, where the father still lives. One of a family of twelve chil- dren, Anton I. Lopp grew up in his native land and early in life came to a realization that the old country did not hold out promises for the future to him. Through friends who had come to the United States he had heard of the great possibilities to be found in this country, and long before he was able to make the trip he had planned to become a resident of the United States. In February, 1906, he arrived in this country, a raw foreigner, unable to speak the English language and with no idea of the customs of the country which he had chosen for his future home. He had plenty of pluck and courage, however, and upon his arrival came to Sparta, Minnesota, where he found employment in the mines. After three months of work of this kind he became janitor in the home of. A. J. Sullivan, who at that time was superintendent of the mines. It was while there that he began to apply himself omnivorously to learning the language and customs of the country. When he left Mr. Sullivan's employ it was to become delivery clerk for a meat market at Sparta, a position in which he remained one year, and at the end of that time, in 1910, with his brother Joseph, who had preceded him to this country, he embarked in the meat market business at Gilbert.
From the beginning this venture proved a successful one. Mr. Lopp was energetic and obliging, was careful of his own interests, but of his customers as well, and his goods were always truthfully represented and fairly priced. In 1915 the present store was built, and July, 1917, he purchased his brother's interests and became sole proprietor of the busi- ness. He gradually added a line of groceries to his market, and at the present time has the principal business of its kind at Gilbert. Such has been the short but interesting career of a young man who has had the courage to face obstacles and the perseverance to overcome them. In this country in the short space of sixteen years Mr. Lopp has found the opportunity to work his way to position and independence, and he is accordingly grateful. He had been in this country only seven months when he decided that the United States was his home for all the future, and at that time took out his first naturalization papers, which have been followed by his securing complete citizenship. He has studied and observed closely in order to make himself thoroughly American, and during the World war showed his patriotism in a number of ways. Mr. Lopp was a captain of the Liberty Loan campaigns of his locality and campaign manager thereof, and a member of Company B, Eighth Battalion, Home Guards. He contributed liberally to all movements for the successful prosecution of the war, and in times of peace has dis- played his public spirit and interest in civic affairs. He is a stockholder
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in the First National Bank of Gilbert. With his family he belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.
On September 27, 1916, Mr. Lopp was united in marriage to Miss Pauline Chernoff, and to this union there has been born one son, Cyril.
CHARLES G. FULTON has been in the northern Minnesota country for a quarter of a century. He came here in the role of a school teacher, did some pioneer work in that line and has always been deeply interested in educational progress and advancement. For a number of years past his principal energies have been employed with one of the leading retail establishments of the Range district, the Kraker Mercantile Company at Gilbert, of which he is secretary.
Mr. Fulton was born in southern Ohio in Adams County, on June 19, 1870, a son of Alfred R. and Ruth (Potts) Fulton, early farming people of that locality. His father served for three years in the First Ohio Heavy Artillery in the Civil war. The widowed mother is still living.
One of three children, Charles G. Fulton grew up in Ohio, was edu- cated in the public schools, took the normal course at Hillsboro College and a commercial course at Delaware, Ohio. This education was not continuous, being interrupted by periods of teaching, from which he defrayed the expenses of his advanced schooling.
On coming to Minnesota in 1896 Mr. Fulton taught what is known as the Dotka School on the Vermillion road, eighteen miles from Duluth. Leaving there and coming to the Mesaba Range, he taught two years at Sparta. For a year he was a hotel proprietor, and for a decade filled several positions of responsibility in the employ of the Oliver Iron Min- ing Company, serving first as supply clerk at the Genoa Mine, then as timekeeper, cashier, and finally was transferred to the management of the office at the Gilbert Mine.
Mr. Fulton in 1910 became bookkeeper in the Saari-Campbell-Kraker Company at Gilbert. He was soon a man of influence in this corporation, by 1912 had acquired a financial interest and became secretary, and since 1918 the business has been the Kraker Mercantile Company, with Mr. Fulton as one of the active executives.
For the past ten years he has always been a member of the School Board of Independent School District No. 18. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order, Knight of Pythias and Modern Woodmen of America, and is a member of the Gilbert Commercial Club. November 12, 1902, he married Miss Bessie Luke. They have three children : Anna Ruth, and Robert Luke and Marjorie Rowe, twins.
PETER PETERSON. A substantial business citizen of Eveleth, Peter Peterson began his career here in the infancy of the town and has grown with its growth and prospered with its prosperity. His career has been typical of self-made manhood, and during his residence at Eveleth indus- try. integrity and capable direction of his activities have combined to make him one of the successful merchants and real estate operators of his community.
Mr. Peterson was born in Finland, February 7, 1866, a son of Peter and Katy Huhta. His name, therefore, is really Huhta, the surname being after the farm which his father operated in Finland. Upon coming to this country he found the name hard for others to pronounce and spell, causing considerable trouble and annoyance, and to simplify mat- ters he took his father's name, Peter, and, according to Finnish custom, aded "son," making the name Peterson. Under this name he took out his first naturalization papers at Houghton, Michigan, and completed his
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