The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1933-03-24

earliest recorded facts of mans life
1t seems that he has ever been endowed
with an urge to leave the comfort and
ease of the home and place of his birth
and push onto the frontier to undis-
covered lands. And so passing down the
years of recorded history we find man
has ever pushed on to the frontier.
The Yale University press says, "The
Frontierl There is no word in the
English language more stirring, more
intimate or more beloved. It means the
old hope of real personal liberty.
The fascination of the frontier is, and
has ever been an undying thing Adj
venture and the frontier are one and
insepariable. They suggest strength,
courage, hardihood, qualities beloved in
men since the world began-qualities
which are the very soul of the United
States itself, an experiment an ad-
venture, risk accepted" Columbus,
the great pioneer and explorer who
sailed the unknown sea and discovered
America, made America the new
frontier-and to it came the pioneers of
Europe. The French along the St.
Lawrence, the Great Lakes and upper
Mississippi, and today we have French
names in this section in memory and
honor of these early pioneers. The
English along the Atlantic seaboard,
forming eventually the thirteen colonies,
and the Spanish to the south and the
great southwest where their influence
and imprint is still left in the beautiful
and musical names one encounters
especially in California.
At the close of the American Revolu-
ton the frontier for the United States
was along the Appalachian Mountains.
Pittsburgh was frontier location.
It has always been the habit of men
entering new country to establish
trails and nearly all of these great
trails are now covered by railroads and
good automobile roads-these trails
naturally followed the streams and
valleys as being the easiest means of
entrance into new country. The old
trail to Pittsburgh which Washington
and the early pioneers used is now
largely followed by the Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad. The Mohawk trail
which was used by the people of New
England and Eastern New York who
migrated west is now used by four
tracks of the Great New York Central
and broad concrete highways for the
automobile. Then there was the trail
taken by Daniel Boone from Virginia
to Kentucky the Santa Fe Trail used
by the early pioneers to enter the south
west now used by the Santa Fe Railroad
and by automobile route.
The great Overland or Oregon trail
which followed the Platte and Missouri
river and divided at a far western
point, one fork going to the Oregon
and Northwest country, the other to the
gold country of California. It was used
by the 'Forty-niners" and by the
pioneers of Oregon and the Northwest
A painting of it is shown in the
capitol at Washington, showing a great
covered wagon trail at the fork, one
part of the trail going to California and
the other to Oregon. This trail scene
was used in the great movie 1.-THE
Covered Wagon"
There was trail called the Mormon
trail used by the Mormons in their
great trek across the country to their
new home at Salt Lake.
And when we come to consider our
own community we find that as a re-
suit of the early gold rush to Lake
Vermilion and then later discovery OF
iron ore, the historic Vermilion trail was