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

738 DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
of congressional township 59-17, was organized in 1908, and seems
to have just missed being one of the important mining townships.
The township is, apparently, just on the fringe of the rich mining
area of the Mesabi Range, and had a couple of good mining properties
in the extreme southern tier of sections, but its southern border
adjoins what is known as the "Sliver," which name well describes the
strip of unorganized territory
Wuori and Missabe Mountain.
that lies between the townships of
One writer thus refers to the Sliver:
"Some of the early surveys were formal enough. There was
the Virginia Sliver, for example, so called because whoever surveyed
58-17 neglected to hook up his lines with the boundaries of
59-17, which had been previously run on the north. It left a gap of
no-man's land, five miles long east and west, and nearly a quarter of
a mile wide at the western end, tapering to nothing on the east.
And as that happened to contain some millions of tons of fron ore,
it gave rise to one of the prettiest bits of litigation this country
has seen."
The addition of the "Sliver" to Wuori would have materially increased
its importance, from a mining point of view. Still, the Ordean
Mine has yielded a million tons of ore, and possibly other good
mines will develop when there is need of the ore.
The township was formed in 1908, following the presenting of
a petition, which bears date of April 29, 1908, to the county commissioners,
who considered the document at their session of May of
that year. They approved the petition at that meeting, and passed
resolution to organize
that being the wish of
township 59-17
the petitioners.
as the Township of "Hill,"
The first town meeting was
ordered to be held "at the "Homestead School House on section 10,
township 59-17," on May 25th, and presumably was held.
Later, it became necessary to find another name for the new
township, there being another "Hill" township in the state (in Kittson
County) ; and when this became known to the commissioners
they fell back upon the name first written into the petition, and named
the township "Wuori," although they had earlier been of the opinion
that such a name would be too unusual to be advisable.
When the township was organized in 1908, Wuori had an assessed
valuation of $242,244, and in that year the taxes totalled to
$3,052.27. In 1919, the valuation had become reduced to $90,362.
The Ordean Mine shows practically no more ore available, and the
Allan Mine has not been worked since 1914.
Nevertheless, in some respects, Wuori Township is advancing.
It is gradually being settled, and there are some good farms in the
township, which in 1920 was shown to have a population of 296, an
increase of 74 over the 1910 census.
The Virginia school district, known as Independent School District
No. 22, has jurisdiction throughout Wuori Township, which
is debited a school tax of only 16.4 mills. Some rural school districts
pay as high as 37 mills. The history of the Virginia school district
will be reviewed with the general history of that city.
The ofificials of Wuori Township in 1920 were : Ed. Arvola
(chairman), Emil Wittanen and Wm. Rekonen, supervisors; Antti
Heikkila, clerk; Alex Niemi, assessor; Sam Lampi, treasurer.