Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-02

Company, in order to secure a short and
direct route from the Red River valley
grain belt to the head of the lakes. bought
the Duluth and Winnipeg line running from
Deer River to Duluth. and extended 1t from
Deer River to connect with the Red River
Valley division of the Great Northern at
FosstOn. MINI.
Offer Declined by Rockefeller.
II had been working on the Marquette
range for many years." said Mr.. Philbin,
until 1893 when l came to Minnesota to
take charge Of the Duluth. Missabe and
Northern railroad. I remained with 1t UNI
til 1896, when I accepted an offer from the
Duluth and Winnipeg railway to take
charge of all Its operations, including Its
mining interests. l saw the possibilities Of
the situation, but was poWerless to aake al
vantage of 1t on my own account. ana began
to look around for some means OF develop
ing the vast wealth which l knew was
lying beneath those old stumps from which
the timber had been cut. 1 soon learned
that Wright & Davis had offered their
but he had declined to buy them at such a
high figure. / went to Saginaw, saw Mr..
Amasa Wright, Mr.. c. Fl. Davis and their
associates, and secured a three months
option upon the properties at that price,
which proposed to offer to Mr.. James j.
Hill. 1 went to ST. Paul with the option IN
my pocket, only to find that Mr.. Hill was In
Europe, and there was nobody at the Great
Northern Offices with whom 1 could nego-
tiate Mr.. Hills subordinates advised me
to cable him, but 1 told them it would re-
Northern railway to tell Mr.. Hill what |
wanted him to know. Then they advised
me to follow him to Europe, but was
afraid the option was too short FINALLY
got into touch with Mr.. Hill by cable and
learned that he was about starting Tor
home having received news that his son
and namesake, Jim, was dangerously Ill
at a hospital in New YORK; l went down 10
he arrival Of his steamer. and
when he saw on the dock he asked
anxiously:
is Jim dead?'
mo l replied, 'Jim's all right but l
am not and I want to submit to you the
biggest business proposition that ever came
this way as soon as I can have your atten-
ton
Hill Takes the Lands.
"Mr. Hill gave me chance to go over
the matter with him and kept the papers to
study on his way to st. Paul, where he
asked me to meet him the following week
When 1 arrived there. however, he told me
that he had had no time to look into the
matter any further, and was about to start
for the Pacific coast, where he expected to
be detained for several weeks. l warned
him that the option would expire before he
got back and suggested that he invite the
Saginaw people to make the trip with him.
He saw the advantage of the suggestion
and wired them that he would send his pri-
vate car to Saginaw, II they would join him
for the journey as his guests. They wired
back that they were obliged to decline, but
agreed to extend the option until Mr.. Hill
returned to st. Paul.
1T was arranged that they should meet
him there, which they did, and in almost as
short time as it takes to tell 1t the deal
was closed for cash. He paid them 81, 7OO.-
OOO for "a 600 acres Of land from which the
timber had been cut fifty miles Of logging
railroad, with a small amount of old rolling
stock, several small locomotives, and the
lease which they had given to the Youngs-
town people for the now famous Mahoning
mine, the largest open mine in the world.
Shortly previous to that time Mr.. Hill.
as 1 have said, had bought the Duluth and
Winnipeg railroad, which carried with 1t
600 acres of land. and had also pur-
chased 5000 acres of wild land located
about fifty miles northwest of the west end
of the Mesaba range. In addition to this
he picked up leases from the state, and
land wherever he could get 1t, most or 1t
in small tracts Of forty acres each. In that
holdings, making a total of $1,000 acres of
land on or in the neighborhood of the
Mesaba range. The deeds to all these lands
were made to the Great Northern railway.
had any other official of the railway any
personal interest whatsoever.
"A portion of the land thus secured
at that time being developed by persons to
whom Wright & Davis had given leases,
including the Mahoning mine, controlled by
the Cambria Steel Company and Youngs-
town people, the Utica mine, controlled by
Mather & Company of Cleveland, and the
Latonia mine, operated by Jones q Laugh
lin of Pittsburg. Those leases were all
transferred to the Great Northern railway,
which now receives the royalties from them
for the benefit of it's stockholders.
Hill Not Mining Man.