-
A college journalist and the last interview of Gus Hall
Last week, I was the keynote speaker for the June meeting of the Finnish Americans and Friends club in Hibbing. I wish I could say it was because they were super impressed with my 1/8 Finnish heritage. Alas, that was not so. Rather, they wanted to know about an interview I conducted when I was…
-
Minnesota: charging toward greatness
Today is July 2, the actual birthday of the United States of America. (Ask John Adams about that. He abhorred that officials selected July 4, the date of the paperwork being filed, as the holiday). July 2 is also the anniversary of the charge of the First Minnesota Volunteers on the second day of the…
-
Cold war bombs in the bogs of Northern MN
I came across a fascinating piece of Northern Minnesota history in this Doug Easthouse article “Bombing the Big Bog” in the Minnesota DNR publication, Minnesota Conservation Volunteer. Northern Minnesota gets a lot of attention for its timber and minerals, but it’s also home to many thousand of acres of rich peat bogs. Some of these…
-
History’s human forge
Throngs of civilians gather inside the ramparts of Fort Snelling in St. Paul. The heat, nearly 100 degrees, oppresses all movement. Ladies fan themselves while the men soak stiff collars with sweat. Cooks fry and boil a feast over open flames; the smell hangs heavy in the air. At once a light breeze blows in…
-
Debunking many immigrant family legends
Every year I read the names at the Hibbing Community College graduation ceremony. That means I’ve become unusually accustomed to pronouncing names that originate from areas all over Europe. In recent years, an influx of students from Africa have added new challenges to my elocution. I am from a land of immigrants but walk around…
-
‘Mr. Power’s undaunted fighting spirit’
There isn’t much in Iron Range newspapers these days that can rightly be called “refreshing,” but something in this Sunday’s Hibbing Daily Tribune surely fit the bill. Too bad it was a story originally published 100 years ago. Jack Lynch, my former colleague and neighbor from my Hibbing Tribune days, always does a good job finding…
-
The distant barons of Duluth and the Iron Range
As readers here know, we in Northern Minnesota are living in a time of speculation and bewilderment over the machinations of distant industrial powers. The regional economy of the Iron Range is dangling on a bouncing string pulled by unseen actors. But this is nothing new. Same now as it ever was. Zenith City Online, a…
-
Tempest winds lean hard on a century
Today, April 14 or what’s left of it, is “Ruination Day.” Described fittingly by the Gillian Welch song, Ruination Day marks the date that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated (1865), the date the Titanic struck an iceberg (1912) and the date a dust storm consumed much of the high plains amid the aptly named Dust Bowl (1935). Not coincidentally, it was…
-
Amelia Earhart on the Iron Range
Almost 80 years ago, on Oct. 4, 1935, the famed pilot Amelia Earhart spoke to citizens in Hibbing, Minnesota, about advances in human flight and previewed some of her upcoming adventures. During her stop on the Iron Range she reassured a nervous crowd about air travel, dismissed the prevalence of air sickness, and explained why she thought…
-
‘Mesabi Pioneers’ spins fiction amid rich history
Ever since humans first crawled from the primordial ooze they have made futile attempts to write novels, ultimately abandoning these crude failures inside file cabinets crafted from the bones of long-extinct beasts. So it was in the beginning, so it shall be in the end. I’ve got a botched literary bun in the stone-cold oven…
-
Today in Alt-History: North Minnesota and South Minnesota
A couple weeks ago I came across this feature from the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader in South Dakota exploring an interesting intersection of American history. In the time before Minnesota statehood and the dissection of Dakota territory, there was serious talk of splitting Minnesota on an east-west border instead of using the Red River as a north-south…
-
Ancient mysteries on Minnesota’s Iron Range
Cindy Kujala at the Hometown Focus includes a buffet of interesting mysteries and factoids about Iron Range history in her column this week. Most of it is reprinted from a project compiled by the Iron Range Historical Society and University of Minnesota at Duluth. My favorite excerpt: There is a place where the Embarrass River…
-
‘The ore won’t burn up, won’t go out of fashion’
A friend of the blog recently sent me an old book: “Duluth and St. Louis County Minnesota: Their Story and People,” edited by Walter Van Brunt and published by The American Historical Society, 1921. The 1890s in northern Minnesota were historic for transfer of public lands to lumbermen. In process, lumbermen either discovered ore or…
-
WWII mystery over the skies of northern Minnesota
“I believe submarines Underneath deep blue seas Saw the flags: Japanese No one will believe me” ~ “Submarines,” by The Lumineers In 2014, history seems buried six feet under the bookshelves. Grandparents know a little more, doling out dusty recollections over the meat and potatoes of family gatherings. If there was a sculpture struck, a…
-
‘Lost Iron Range’ airs tonight on public television
I am sometimes asked to explain why I chose to stay in northern Minnesota instead of chasing some faster life under brighter lights of some big city. My answer is simple: I am a writer at heart; writers need stories; the Iron Range is teeming with past, present and future conflict; and the complete story…