New urgency for rural broadband
My family and I live down a long dirt road in rural Itasca County. Mud season reminds us of the challenges of rural life and the thin tendon joining our home to civilization. This world seems even farther away during the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our nation and the world, but it’s still there. We still… Read More →
Iron Range in isolation: talking COVID-19
Last week I appeared on KAXE with Heidi Holtan talking about the COVID-19 situation on the Mesabi Iron Range. Check it out. This was my first radio appearance since being sheltered in place with my family here in the woods of northern Minnesota. We make a couple trips to town each week for groceries and… Read More →
Mayor Larson wins in Duluth while council sees changes
Mayor Emily Larson cruised to re-election over challenger David Nolle in Tuesday’s municipal elections. Larson won by more than 5,000 votes, about 63 percent to Nolle’s 36 percent. Larson heads an administration that has largely continued the progressive policies begun under former mayor Don Ness. She also inherited the challenges that have bedeviled Duluth for… Read More →
Minnesota’s iconic hockey hair video dekes out fans, parties back in
Forty years after the “Miracle on Ice,” we get another one. Last year, the mysterious creator of the annual 2020 Minnesota State High School League “All Hockey Hair” team announced his retirement after ten years of hilarious videos. But this year, against all odds, he’s back. The video’s a little shorter, a little more to… Read More →
On the missing pieces in Iron Range political coverage
On Sunday, the national political publication Politico profiled the shifting political winds on northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. Reporter Adam Behsudi and photographer M. Scott Mahaskey toured the region a few weeks ago. And yes, I appear in the story. It’s worth reading. But if you do, consider reading my latest column for the Minnesota… Read More →
This just in
New urgency for rural broadband
My family and I live down a long dirt road in rural Itasca County. Mud season reminds us of the challenges of rural life and the thin tendon joining our home to civilization. This world seems even farther away during the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our nation and the world, but it’s still there. We still… Read More →
MinnesotaBrown.com is an independent website by author and journalist Aaron J. Brown. It covers Northern Minnesota news, culture and politics with an authentic back woods voice and award-winning experience.
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POWER: A new book project about Victor Power by Aaron J. Brown
Victor Power
For a time, Victor Power was the most powerful small town mayor in the United States. Nevertheless, his short yet extraordinary life fighting the steel trusts from his office in Hibbing slowly slips into obscurity. Aaron J. Brown is working on a book about Victor Power and his early 20th Century world, which stretched far beyond a little boom town in the forests of Northern Minnesota, from the ganglands of Chicago to the ivory towers of New York. Contact Aaron with any Hibbing-area stories from 1900 to 1926 even remotely related to Victor Power or his family, labor unions, the Oliver Mining Company, Al Capone, bootleggers, politicians or any first-hand material about what life in Hibbing was like then. This may be the last chance for many longstanding family legends to become part of permanent history.
