The Duluth rip-saw. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1917-19??, 1917-08-04
PART III.

ASO6SAS Aoh ~ SNA ~ @oA ~ AuAA
road line from Duluth to Winni-
peg, Manitoba. The line was To-
Gated as far as Lake of the
Woods. My brother Cassius was
head explorer. Mr.. Banks was
engineer. G. H. Martz and his
brother, w. j. Martz, were men,
bers of the engineering corps.
My brother ran the exploring
line from the mouth Of Sturgeon
river around the south side of
the Lake of the Woods and then
on to Winnipeg. In locating this
line through Township So N,
Range 10 W., in Section 6, just
on the Height of Land, and on
the divide of the waters, Cassius
saw boulder of iron ore and
brought a piece to Duluth. That
was the first chunk Of clean ore
taken from the Mesaba iron
range. That was in the year
1887. Exploration was not
started on the Mesaba range for
some time after that.
The State of Minnesota held
in trust for the schools a lot of
land that we believed contained
minerals. Having worked for
the state as timber cruisers, we
were we'll acquainted with state
auditor Braden. My brother
Leonidas and 1 told him what
we believed to be true about the
value of those lands to the
school children of Minnesota.
Auditor Braden thereupon had
a bill prepared and the legis-
lature passed it, preserving those
lands to the school fund. Audi
tor Braden appointed a commit
tee Of three to say what price
should be paid as a royalty on
ore from lands leased from the
state. This committee consisted
Of George G. Stone, Leonidas
Merritt and Alfred Merritt.
There was great pressure to fix
a royalty as low as ten cents a
ton. Then they wanted it placed
at fifteen cents and, finally, at
twenty cents. The committee
decided unanimously that roy
atty Of Is cents a ton would be
recommended. So it was done
and the legislature concurred.
That same royalty stands to day.
believe that auditor Braden
was perfectly honest in his ef-
forts to protect the school lands
Of the state Of Minnesota as have
been the other state auditors.
It always has given me great
satisfaction to know that [ had
an humble part in preserving the
state iron lands to the public
schools.
In the year 1889, the first
work was done on what now is
the Mountain Iron mine. I took
a crew Of six men in by the way
of Tower on March II, 1899 We
started from Tower with three
dog trains and we were the
dogs. We went via Pike River,
then to Rice Lake and thence to
Mountain Iron. We dug test
pits and finally drilled. All the
work was done on the south one
half of the south one-half (S1a
Of S1a) of section "a, 1913. We
found we were too far north for
the ore and on going south found
the ore on sections 3 and 4, d.
rectly south Of our first work,
in the summer Of 1890.
Unless one has actually gone
through the hardships and dis
couragements Of keeping a camp
going so far from a base Of sup
plies, he cannot realize what we
had to contend with. The rails
ing of the money was no small
job in itself and the worst task
Of all was keeping up the cour-
age Of ones partners.
After the ore was found, we
then had to look for transporta-
ton. We went to both the
Northern Pacific and the St.
Paul & Duluth railroads, they
being separate at the time.
Neither would do anything.
Their officials did not realize
the value Of the Mesaba range
and it's great future traffic. We
hardly knew what to do. We
were almost discouraged. Fin
ally, we got hold of the Duluth
& Winnipeg railroad and were
informed that if we would get
the ore down to Stony Brook,
that company would make a traf-
fic contract with us whereby the
ore would be hauled to the Head
of Lake Superior.
We managed to build a line