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

780 DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
had been over the district on foot in 1892, estabHshed a laboratory there,
and Hibbing has for a quarter of a century been one of the most important
centers of their extensive business. Their business has grown and
developed with the development of the Range country, and their operations
at the present time are handled through thirteen separate labora-
tories. Both as citizens as well as technical men in the iron industry the
Lerch brothers know the history of the Mesaba Range practically complete.
Their first laboratory at Virginia was in a two-story frame building
on Chestnut street, where Casey & Pastermaki's drug store is now
located. The lower floor of this building was occupied by the Presbyterian
Church, the City Hall and a real estate office, the upper floor being
used by the Lerch Brothers Laboratory. The Lerch Brothers came to
Northern Minnesota about the beginning of the tremendous financial
depression known as the panic of 1893. It required persistence and
determination on their part as well as on other industrial organizations
to maintain a precarious foothold in the face of hardship and adversity.
There was practically no money in the district at that time. The Lerch
Brothers did some professional work for Frank Rockefeller, who paid
them with his personal note for two hundred dollars. The Oliver Mining
Company at one time, despite the fact that its resources have for
many years been almost unlimited, were unable to pay them cash for
services to the amount of only five hundred dollars. These were some
of the embarrassments that afford a suggestive view of some of the early
days in Range histdry.
For ten years Fred Lerch lived at Biwabik, but with that exception
his home has been in Virginia continuously. He owns an interest in valuable
iron ore property in southwest Utah, and has some fruit orchards
in New Jersey, forty-five miles from New. York City. He was one of the
three incorporators of the American Exchange National Bank of Virginia,
Minnesota, on March 9, 1904, and is a member of the Board of
Directors. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner.
November 10, 1900, Mr. Lerch married Miss Eleanor IMiller. Her father.
W. R. Miller, located at Merritt, now practically Biwabik, in December,
1902. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Lerch are Glen B. and
Muriel M.
Oscar A. Berglund. In the great material growth and expansion of
Duluth during the past twenty years an important service has been rendered
by Oscar A. Berglund and his organization of contractors and
builders. He is senior partner of Berglund, Peterson & Person, who have
rather made a specialty of fine residence construction, and have a personnel
and mechanical equipment in their plant at 131 West Second street
for the very finest work in their line.
Mr. Berglund was born in Sweden December 2, 1876, and grew up
and received a careful training in carpentry and cabinet making in his
native country. In 1902 he came to America and located at Duluth, and
followed his trade as a journeyman until 1908. Since then he has been
a contractor, for the first year in partnership with Martin Olsen under
the name Berglund & Olsen. After that he conducted an individual
organization as a contractor and builder until 1914, when Joseph Peterson
joined him as the firm of Berglund & Peterson, contractors and build-
ers, and two years later they took in A. E. Person, making the firm as at
present, Berglund. Peterson & Person. Examples of their fine workmanship
can be found in handsome residences all over the city, one or
two examples selected at random being the Keechi, the Newell, the Par-
.sons and Westbrook residences. The firm maintains a complete factory