The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1927-12-02

1896, to August, 1898, and at loss
of considerably more than 100000
About this time Messrs. Rockefeller
and Corrigan concluded that they
had enough, but the Duluth group,
confident with the value of the prop
erty, and with faith in the future
demand for ore, desired to hang on.
The Duluth crowd stood to loose
heavily if the Cleeland men did not
stand by their guns. They tried first
to persuade the Cleveland men, and
when they could not do that they
tried to delay the inevitable.
Henry w. Oliver of Pittsburg
stood ready to buy the lease of the
Zenith mine. His offer was $50, 900,
and both Rockefeller and Corrigan
were willing to accept. They called
special meeting of the stockholders
to formally accept the offer, the
meeting to be held in Superior. The
Duluth stockholders tried up to the
last moment to cause the Cleveland
men to change their minds, and furn-
ish the required assistance to tide
the company over the dull period,
until the mine could be operated
profitably but without success. They
then managed to stave off the first
special meeting, after becoming con-
WINGED of the unalterable determin-
alton of both Rockefeller and Corri-
gan to pocket their loss.
81 am out $4,000 on this Zen
it'll proposition, and l shall not put
up another dollar" declared Mr..
Rockefeller.
"The way / feel now / would not
give a dollar if l knew we had a
million tons of ore in the Zenith
mine," said Mr.. Corrigan, and GER
tainly the iron mining industry at the
time was Improbable even as now,
for the operator relying upon the
open market for his product.
Duluth Men Block Sale.
The Duluth stockholders were
ready with technicality which
stopped the first special meeting to
act on the offer of Mr.. Oliver, but
the attorneys for Messrs Rockefeller
and Corrigan, at their direction,
promptly called another meeting,
and then occurred another hitch.
When it came to voting it required
a full two-thirds vote to carry the
proposition to sell, and it happened
that in the division of the capital
stock into thirds that the one-third
held by the Duluth crowd carried
fraction of one share more than a
one-third. A Michigan man who
had obtained some of the st ,ck was
surprised one day to get wife from
James Corrigan asking him to name
a price for his holdings in the Zenith
Iron Company. This stakeholder
wired at once to a Duluth stock
holder and personal friend to in
quire what was doing. He was adj
vised to sit tight and name no price
at the time. The, result was u dead
lock which lasted some days. The
Duluth men. would not sell share
at any price, and the fractional
share blocked the sale of the lease.
Twenty thousand dollars will
carry this property for three years,
and by that time we will all say quit
if we then are not satisfied with the
conditions and the outlook" appeal
ed one Duluth stakeholder after
another to the Cleveland men. But
the latter said something more about
a loss of $4,000, and fervently de-
clared that they knew when they
had enough. Discovering at length
that the Cleveland men could not be
persuaded, the Duluth men reluct-
antly Joined them and accepted the
$4,000 offered by Mr.. Oliver for
the Zenith lease.
The celebrated Pittsburgher, after
all these difficult years for the pro-
motors of the Zenith, later turned
the lease over to the Minnesota Iron
Company. It is not known to this
day what he received for it, teyond
the fact that it was a sum which
represented a profit on his $4,000
investment. Later the Minnesota
Iron Company was absorbed by the
Oliver Iron Mining Company, and
with it the lease of the Zenith Mine.
Special interest attaches to the
Zenith iron mine for the reason that
the property, acreage considered,
contains one of the largest and best
iron deposits in the Lake Superior
region. That it will be a producer
a great many years hence is well
understood. The Vermilion range
iron ores go deep. The Soudan mine