-
Minnesota’s true past becomes clearer in ‘Land of the Dakota’
This is my Sunday column for the June 2, 2013 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Congratulations to Gwen Westerman and Bruce White for winning the Minnesota Book Award for “Mni Sota Makoce.” Minnesota’s true past becomes clearer in ‘Land of the Dakota’By Aaron J. Brown “Human beings have recorded their relationships with places in…
-
B’nai Abraham shares Range Jewish history with stories, music
B’nai Abraham Cultural Center, Virginia, Minnesota When the Iron Range received a surge of immigrants in the early 20th Century it become one of the most diverse places in the country, a fact that often seems foreign on the Iron Range of today. Among its many groups was a vibrant Jewish community, and though that…
-
Duluth adds ‘cool train’ to milieu of arriving transportation antiquities
Milwaukee Road 261 This Saturday at about 3 p.m. the Milwaukee Road 261 stream engine will pull into Duluth with about 500 passengers and a heaping load of history. The Duluth News-Tribune reports that the train’s appearance for “National Train Day” might well be regarded by railroad enthusiasts with the same fervor as this summer’s…
-
The Summer of ’16: ‘We’ve been robbed long enough’
An August 19, 1916 editorial cartoon in “Solidarity” entitled “Someone Has Got to Get Out of the Way.” By far my favorite piece of Iron Range historical art. Hey, it’s May Day! I wrote earlier about the Mesabi Range Strike of 1907. I referenced, but did not explain the larger strike that came later in…
-
The Mesabi Iron Range Strike of 1907
For Twin Cities readers you may wish to catch the documentary “The Mesabi Iron Range Strike of 1907” tonight at 7:30 on KFAI. Produced by Britt Aamodt, this piece explores the seminal moment that workers organized in the mines of the Iron Range. Unsuccessful, the first great strike of the Iron Range led to the…
-
Taft for our times
This is my Sunday column for the April 7, 2013 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. “Taft 2012: A Novel” by Jason Heller was clearly packaged to fuel the zeitgeist of last year’s election, spoofing targets from the media, to the tea party, modern politics and obesity in general. I read the book just recently,…
-
A masker of life and death
What can we do to bring back life and death masks? Take a little trip through history and check out some famous figures from the ages as they actually appeared. Lincoln. Napoleon. How about real George Washington? All in there. I rather prefer the life masks, if only because they better represent what the person…
-
Save the Two Harbors roundhouse?
A Two Harbors businessman is making a pitch to save the city’s historic roundhouse and renovate it to house a modern manufacturing facility. The Duluth News Tribune has the story. Normally this might not make the blog, but for this quote from the developer, John Ilse: Ilse isn’t accustomed to being on the side of…
-
Johnson tapes show history’s many possibilities
As a student of history, it’s hard not to marvel at stories like this (“The Lyndon Johnson Tapes: Richard Nixon’s ‘treason’“). It was President Lyndon Johnson who installed the famous policy of recording everything that happened in the Oval Office. His idea was that the tapes would provide the historical record to correct the speculations…
-
See this stunning collection of Iron Range images
The old Dupont power house, just before it was demolished thistime last year, shot by Minneapolis photographer Vance Gellart. I’ve paged through just some of the many photos shot by Minneapolis photographer Vance Gellart from his travels across the Iron Range trying to capture the unique colors, gritty ambiance and stunning contrasts found in this…
-
Riding the Iron Range’s urban rail service of yore
Many are surprised to learn that the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota once boasted an interurban rail service called the Mesaba Railway. Hourly trains between Hibbing and Gilbert served the St. Louis County side of the Mesabi Iron Range, a row of towns that follow a rich iron formation that gives the region its name.…
-
Gadzo talks Iron Range potica on Twin Cities TV
Jason Davis’s popular KSTP “On the Road” segment heads to the Iron Range to talk to Jan Gadzo (pronounced Yahn Gahdso) about potica. Jan Gadzo is an amazing person with an amazing story. I kept lots of notes from talking with him about his experiences fleeing the former Czechoslovakia. Here’s a guy who knows what…
-
The mystery and masks of the Iron Range
You think you know a place, or people, and you really don’t. History is layers upon layers of truth that is only knowable through a quasi-scientific estimation. And you know who I think represents that best? Our fellow northern Minnesotan, Bob Dylan. He theorizes in most recent interviews that the closest you get to the…
-
Richard III found under parking lot; Paul Harvey found on Super Bowl
Behold, a feast of links I don’t entirely know what to do with. The bones of Richard III, one of the shortest-lived English monarchs and the last to die on the battlefield, were found in a shallow grave below a parking lot in England. The story and photos will give you something to think about.…
-
The ‘Pussyfoot’ behind Prohibition in northern MN
Students of Iron Range history might have heard the name William E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson. In addition to holding a fantastically literary name, Johnson holds significance in northern Minnesota history. After all, he was the man who famously brought prohibition to the Iron Range, a place that vehemently, violently didn’t want it. The Hibbing Tribune editorial…