The St. Louis County Board is taking up a measure to rename Co. Hwy 7 after the late, great polka star Bobby Aro, who wrote and performed the 1957 hit “Highway 7.”
Speaking as someone who grew up on Highway 7 not that far from the Aros, I think that’s a pretty good idea. Maybe we could get Highway 37 named the “Gus Hall Expressway?” after the noted Communist leader and labor organizer.
What, too much? Well, maybe the Aro highway will suffice for Finnish heritage in the Cherry/Zim metropolitan area.
I’d advise anyone traveling between the Range and Duluth to use Highway 7 for a scenic view you won’t see in promotional material. The forests of the Cloquet area turn to a seemingly endless marsh as you drive north and just when you think it won’t end you arrive on the Iron Range and everything is red. My family’s junkyard was on the north end of the marsh. When the Finns were blacklisted for labor organizing back in the early 1900s, many of them began farming on any solid ground they could find along Highway 7. Quite a few of these families are still there today.
Below is a picture I took at dawn along Highway 7 back in 2004:
Oh Howard just pointed with his gun
And said, “That way.”
Down highway 61.
– B. Dylan
Coincidentally, I was just posting some Bobby Aro albums yesterday when I discovered it was the same day as the Bobby Aro Highway dedication. How odd is that? I love his music, yah, yah, yah!!!
http://heinouberspace.blogspot.com/