1921 Duluth & St Louis County MN, Van Brunt.pdf - Garon.us

702 DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
employs a staff of eight teachers, one male, whose salary was $177 a
month. The seven female teachers had an average salary of $139 a
month for the school-year of nine months. Professor E. R. Hephner
is the superintendent, and the school board officials are: A. F. Johnson,
Meadowlands, clerk; Andrew Nelson, treasurer; D. O. Anderson,
Charles Palmer, John Sontra and H. A. Heldt, directors. The district
has a good reputation, its standard of education being excellent.
General.—The population of Meadowlands in 1910 was 451 ; in
1920 it stood at 773. It is the center of fine agricultural land, and
there are some excellent farming properties in the township. The
Duluth and Iron Range Railway Company has a large demonstration
farm at Meadowlands. The White Face river passes through the
township, and to the west, dividing Elmer township from Meadowlands,
the St. Louis river runs. Its course through township 53-19
places about six sections of that township within the limits of Elmer
(see Elmer township,- this chapter). Two branches of the Duluth,
Missabe and Northern railway passes through Meadowlands township,
one branch having a station at Meadowlands, and the other at
Birch and Payne. The Great Northern railway also passes through,
so that in railway facilities Meadowlands is favorably situated.
Present Officials.—The township officials in 1920 were :
Chas. F.
Palmer (chairman), Max Bernsdorf and Roy Speece, supervisors;
Max Schleinitz, clerk; Ralph E. Armstrong, assessor; Herman A.
Heldt, treasurer.
Mesaba.—The township of Mesaba, the boundary of which is
that of congressional township fifty-nine north, range 14 west, seemed
at one time to be of much more importance to St. Louis County than
it appears to be today. In it were undertaken some of the first explorations
for iron ore of the Mesabi range.
A Pioneer's Story of the Mesabi.—David T. Adams, now of Chicago
and Duluth, but in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth
century one of the most successful and capable mining pioneer explorers
of the Mesabi Iron Range, writes, under date of December
7, 1920:
"The actual Mesabi range in which iron ore of commercial grade
was found is that part lying horizontally in the low lands along the
easterly foot of the height of land in Minnesota known as the Mesabi
Heights, from a point in township 59, range 14, southwesterly through
St. Louis County and into Itasca County, comprising a total distance
of approximately 110 miles. It is a hematite formation, and is covered
in the main by glacial drifts and erosion from the high lands to
the north. A change in the formation takes place in about the center
of township 59-14, and from there on, northeasterly to its terminus
on the east side of Birch Lake, in the Vermilion range basin, is a
magnetic formation, projecting above the surface and surrounding
country, and in some places pitching sharply to the south under the
gabbro, which is found in that locality. It was not known that the
magnetic formation, comprising the eastern end of the Mesabi range,
changed in character and had any connection with the hematite formation
to the west of a point in township 59-14, until some time during
the years 1883 and 1889. Fragments of rock from the formation
and clean pieces of hematite ore were strewn over the surface along
its entire length, from about the center of township 59-14, St. Louis
County, and extending for several miles to the south of the range, and
in some places to the north, covering a large area in width, as well as
in length. And until the years between 1883 and 1889 no one seemed