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

DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY 747
had a prominent work and service to perform as engineers and as lumber
operators, and W. H. Cook in recent years has been a lumberman with
interests extending from the Pacific northwest to the Atlantic southeast.
W. H. Cook was born in Kent county, Michigan, September 8, 1867,
son of Merritt S. and Ella M. (Reynolds)- Cook, the former a native of
New York state. The father died in 1911 and the mother in 1914.
Merritt Cook spent the greater part of his life as a civil engineer and
surveyor. Coming to Duluth in 1892, he followed his profession until
his death. He possessed a decided mathematical turn of mind, and while
employed in a very practical profession he found his chief deUght in
the theoretical side of mathematics. For a number of years he was
professor of mathematics in Albion College in Michigan. In his family
were six children, four still living, \V. H. Cook being the second in age.
As a boy he attended the common schools of Michigan, and acquired
an expert knowledge of the timber and lumber industry, still an important
line of business in his native state during his youth. He became a skillful
timber cruiser, and was employed in that capacity in several states of
the Union. He first came to Duluth in 1891, and was interested as a
timber dealer and lumber operator in a number of sections in north
Minnesota. He also extended his operations to the Pacific Coast. Mr.
Cook and associates built a line of railway from Virginia, Minnesota,
to Fort Francis in Ontario. He began manufacturing lumber in Virginia,
Minnesota, in 1903. also was one of the organizers of the Virginia and
Rainy Lake Company, with mills at Duluth and Virginia, and in 1911
organized the Trout Lake Lumber Company, manufacturing lumber at
Tower, Minnesota. This industry he continued until 1918. About 1912
he extended his interests as a lumberman and timber owner to South
Carolina, where his business was carried on with headquarters at Greenville.
He is still interested in the lumber operations of that state. Mr.
Cook is a Republican in politics.
December 31. 1888, in Michigan, he married Miss Martha L. Walsh.
Mrs. Cook for a number of years has taken a very prominent part in
charitable and social affairs in Duluth. and was one of the leaders in
local Red Cross work during the war. They have one son, Ellis R.,
who attended the Duluth High School and Dartmouth College and is
now engaged in the lumber business.
Ernest A. Schulze has a business experience that has been continuously
identified with Duluth for thirty years or more. His original
trade was that of a tanner, and he has been in the leather business
continuously and is now president and manager of the Schulze Leather
& Findings Company, one of the leading wholesale houses of the kind
in the northwest.
Mr. Schulze was born at Hancock, Michigan. April 6, 1866. a son of
Gustav A. and \\'ilhelmina (Hohle) Schulze. His father was a native
of Prussia and his mother of southern Germany. On coming to America
Gustav A. Schulze, who was a carpenter and shipwright by trade, located
at Chicago, later moved to Hancock. Michigan, and from there went to
old .Superior, where he engaged in the furniture business. As a millwright
in the employ of Wieland Brothers he left Superior and went
to Reaver Bay, Minnesota, to look after the saw mill of the firm at that
point. Later he was elected to the office of auditor of Lake county, and
when the county seat was moved to Two Harbors he and his family
went along. While there he was county auditor and later county treasurer,
subsequently was appointed postmaster of Two Harbors, and at the
conclusion of his term in the postoffice moved witli his family to Duluth,