The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1913-10-10
MINIS IS
INT By
hIESABA RANGE
DR.. II. p. Dewey Compliments
Virginia at Minneapolis
S. Church Meeting.
RIVALS MINNEAPOLIS
-: IN PUBLIC BUILDINGS
Towns of the Mesaba Triumph Over
Unlovely Surroundings Through
Business Activity and Thrift-Vir
ginia's White Way yies With Nieol-
+ lect Avenue. =-

General Association of Congregational
churches, in an address before that
body at Plymouth church, Minneapolis,
Monday paid Virginia some handsome
compliments. Virginia's courthouse
and public buildings, though smaller,
according to DR.. Dewey are more
beautiful and adequate than are
those of Minneapolis, while it's "white
ways" vie in splendor with those of
Minneapolis. :
DR.. Dewey visited Virginia and
made a trip over the range about
three weeks ago. In an address which
was a general comprehension Of Min
nesota's natural resources DR.. Dewey
had the following to say of Virginia
and the Mesaba range:
"In st. Louis and adjacent counties,
when the ak had felled the trees,
greater riches were found beneath the
denuded surface, and the iron mines
of northeastern Minnesota, according
to the state school of mines, had pro-
duced, from the time of their opening
until 1911, the grand and astounding
total Of 27s, SOC, 900 tons of ore. While
in Hibbing, the other day, stood on
the edge of the Mahoning mine. Ex-z
cavations half q mile in width and o
mile in length and from $50 to 200 feet
in depss had but just exposed the top
portions of the ore which lay in aus
tere bewildering massiveness before
the eye. Again; at the Commodore
mine, in Virginia, huge scoop in the
surface drift revealed advance yield
|inxIs, wiata II ortt. sof metal
still remaining to be extracted. Train
after train bears the precious stuff
from various mines to the Zenith City
of the Unsalted Seas, and from that
port, whose tonnage is the largest of
any city in the world, it is shipped for
the varied uses of humanity, to become
the girders of the mammoth bridge,
the turbine wheels of the ocean
leviathan, the reinforcements of the
vaulting concrete skyscraper, the nine
ty-pound rail under the limited ex-
press train, or the trembling spring in
the lady's watch.
"Weird, awful, fascinating, is the
iron range! Little of beauty remains
in the landscape. In the vicinity of
Hibbing vast areas of desolation- a
scrub growth of trees interpersed with
lifeless trunks, stripped and scorched
by fire, and with large stumps that
|pathetically witness to once magni-
ficent forest-confront one every
where. The mines themselves are
ugly and forbidding, and they pro-
woke the solemn reflection that, rich
as they are, their stores are limited.
When the buried wealth has all been
dug, when the lust of gain can find
nothing more to consume, what dig
NAL scene there will be-unless, per-
chance, a third discovery be made, or
the trees return to their own.
Little Cities Progressive.
"Just now, however, there is more
wealth and potential energy per
square acre on the Iron range than
elsewhere in Minnesota. The towns
in the region triumph over their '1rl-
lovely surroundings by their business
activity and thrift. Virginia, the
queen city Of the group, has splendid
ly paved streets, several of which at.
night are brilliant "White Ways"
vieing in splendor with Nicollet ave-
nue., which, indeed, they seek to emu:
late. It's courthouse. and its public
library, though smaller, are more
beautiful and adequate than the simi
lar buildings in Minneapolis, and the
high school buildings, both in Vir-II
ginia and in Hibbing, in form, equip
ments and arrangements, and in gen.
eral elegance are superior to any cor.
responding structure here, excepting
the one just completed for the Central
high school. Virginia Is also develop
ing park which, with meager aid
from nature, is at least worthy triI-
ute to mans craving for the esthetic.
In divers ways. then, does our state
disclose its physical comeliness, its
commercial greatness and it's general
importance in the matter-of-fact IN.
terests of the world. It Is an alluring