The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1900-10-05
which they want for themselves.

which they want for themselves.
During these later years a change
has been wrought in that part of
the county north of the swamp.
Hunting, fishing and living in tents
and being left out of the count in
every way does not satisfy us any
longer. It is impossible for us to
join our southern friends in their
commercial and manufacturing in
dustries but nature has supplied
abundant resources for an indepen-
dent industrial life here, and we de-
rnand such a condition of things
politically as will best develop all
these resources.
The immense bodies of iron ore in
sight on both ranges leaves no shad-
ow of a doubt that mining will be a
great industry here for hundreds of
years. At or near every mine or
group of mines a town of more or
less Importance has been built up
others will follow as time goes On
and every town is a hungry market
| for an unlimited amount of farm
produce. Lying just off the ranges
and tributary to these towns are re-
markedly fertile agricultural dis
tricts, which are increasing in ex-
tent every year as numbering re-
cedes. Under right conditions these
two great industries should go hand
in hand. AS it it, it is impossible
for any farmer to get his produce to
market and to drive from one town
to another is almost out of the ques-
ton. We believe that we can never
be prosperous people, in an indus
trial sense, until we can reach and
help each other.
To do this we must have roads,
bridges and improvements. For
years we have been looking to the
county for help along these lines.
For years every mining, numbering
and private property on the ranges
has paid into the county treasury at
Duluth it's good big ratio of taxes.
If it were not fact that this money
is needed in the county we would
not be so taxed, yet out of the many
thousands of dollars of range tax
money put into the hands of the St.
Louis county commissioners to be
expended in public improvements,
what percentage returns to these
ranges and is expended in perma-
nent improvements upon them?
1t is unreasonable to expect that
county commissioners, residents of
and interested in Duluth, will take
a great deal of trouble to inquire
into and supply our needs when ev-
cry dollar spent here lessons the
amount to be spent there and d.
minishes our dependence upon
them for ma terial supplies. It is
also useless te expect representa-
ton upon the county board so long
as Duluth can vote us down, but we
have pride and confidence enough
in our people to believe that we can
select from our own number men
who are eminently qualified to rep
resent US upon the board of COM
missioners of the proposed new
county. So far we have paid our
taxes and got nothing from them.
The development of our resources
demand that we should have some
public Improvements which we are
unable to get except through the
aid of the county. We are and have
been paying for them. There is but
one way to get them and that is by
obtaining a division the county so
that we may have men to handle
our money who know and are inter-
ested in our needs. We believe in
county division, the sooner the bet
ter.