Forest History Oral History Project Minnesota Historical Society

Marion Brown Narrator John Esse Interviewer October 29, 1975 Grand Rapids, Minnesota Marion Brown -MB John Esse -JE JE: This is October 29th, 1975 and were taping this morning up in the ProjectFirst National Bank Building which is presently our office space, and with us today is Marion Brown who is a one time resident of Deer River and who presides out in California for part of the time, part of the year, and who has a considerable amount of knowledge on the background of the railroad, mainly because he did work on the railroad and also of course I believeSociety Marion, raised in Deer River? History MB: Was born in Grand Rapids. JE: You were born in Grand Rapids, and thenOral your father? MB: Well moved to Deer River when I was aboutHistorical a year and a half old. JE: Okay, now how old are you now, when were you born? MB: Seventy three. History JE: So you were born? MB: September 3rd, 1902. JE: OkayForest now how didMinnesota your father get to Grand Rapids then? MB: Well my father came here originally in about 1898 I think it was, to teach school. He taught school in the Trout Lake area that was the Trout Lake by Coleraine. JE: Okay. MB: In fact he and my mother both taught in that area, that’s where they met, they taught at separate schools but they stayed with the same family, a family by the name of Faulkner. 1 JE: Uh huh. MB: Mrs. Faulkner, their daughter Bessie Faulkner was of course was a very good friend of my mothers and she is still living and her name is Mrs. Tom Kingston, she lives in Bovey. Then from there my dad then went to work with the Decker Lumber Company that was located in Grand Rapids, and they were purchased in the early 1900s by the King Lumber Company, and the King lumber Company of course was in operation in Grand Rapids with several retail yards of the Iron Range area, and Deer River until just recently, within recent years and then they sold out to Lampert Lumber Company. JE: Oh. MB: And my dad went with the King Lumber Company when they acquired the Decker Lumber Company. In about 1903 he went to Deer River to manage the King Lumber Company Yard. And of course that’s where I spent my life until 1933. I might back track a little and say I was born in Grand Rapids on September 3rd, 1902 and as I mentioned my dadProject moved to Deer River with his family about 1903 and I was raised and went to school in Deer River and stayed there until 1933. JE: Just for a point of .history, was that school that is presently there,Society is that the one that was built at that time or? History MB: The original part of that school was built when I was in the second grader it was completed when I was in the second grade. Many additions have been put on it since including a dormitory that at the time was only it was one of onlyOral two high school dormitories in the United States. JE: What was the reason for that? Historical MB: Because of the large area that the school district covered, the school district covered a lot of the area north of Deer River and transportation facilities in those days were so inadequate that it was, that was the reason thatHistory the dormitory was built, so these children could, high school children could, students I should say, could stay in the dormitory or reside in the dormitory. Of course, probably most of them, a lot of them didn’t only go home for holidays. JE: Ya. MB: SomeForest had the opportunityMinnesota to go on weekends but, the dormitory for high school students was a very unique situation. JE: Ya, most of the kids usually would live in somebody else’s home, and probably… MB: Before they had the dormitory. JE: Ya. 2 MB: Yes, because it would be impossible to commute back and forth from a lot of that district to Deer River. Especially when the days when the roads were not made for travel anywhere’s near the way they are today. JE: Right. MB: But, and then of course as a child I, my father had his residents within a block of the downtown district of Deer River, and of course as a child Deer River was made up of, well you wouldn’t say principle but it had fourteen saloons at one time. Of course there were business places and Deer River from its early days was always considered until the mills went out, it was considered a very good business town. In fact it was considered the best business town in Itasca County. It served a big territory and the logging and mill operations were large operations in those days. At one time Deer River had a saw mill, Itasca Lumber Company saw mill, plain mill and the veneer mill, the veneer mill was established by two Bahr Brothers, Bill Bahr and Roland Bahr, and the mill was later taken over by the J.J. Natze Company of Chicago.Project JE: Oh. MB: And the timber that they used was something that in the early days there was no market for, it was all very selective hardwood. Birch, Maple, Oak, Basswood, ElmSociety and of course they turned out some beautiful veneer products. And it was the only large hardwood operation that they ever had in this County and I wouldn’t hesitate to say in NorthernHistory Minnesota. JE: Now we’re all three of those… Oral MB: And they were all operating at one time. JE: Now were all three of those built after youHistorical moved to Deer River or were some of those operations already going? MB: No they were all builtHistory after my dad moved to Deer River. So you probably can recall some of the In fact as a young boy I started working in the mills when I, not in the mills but they wouldn’t allow a yo.ung boy in the mill, but I was fourteen years old when I had my first job, which was a summer vacation at the Itasca Lumber Company Mill. They hired kids my age to pile sixteen inch stoveForest wood. Minnesota JE: Uh huh. MB: They used to cut this up from the trimmings and the slabs from the mill and they stored during the summer and it would dry out during the summer and then they sold it to residents in the community during the winter, by the wagon load. And of course they used a lot of wagons in the winter time but they would use the same box and put it on sled runners. It was good wood for cooking and fairly mild temperature, but it wasn’t adequate of course for severe temperatures. 3 JE: Ya. MB: And then, in later years as a young boy I was only fifteen years old and I was working, running a lath machine in the lath department of the mill. The lather department was in the same mill. JE: Ya. MB: And I did that for a couple of summers until the general manager of the operation happened to come through the mill on a instruction tour one day and asked the foreman how old I was, and I was only sixteen years old then, and the general manager said well that can’t be, he has got to be eighteen years old to run those machines. I could run the lath machine or any of the machines, and there were only two machines, one was a Bolder and one was a lath machine. The bolder cut the slabs and the trimmings to the dimension that would go in the lath machine, and the lath machine of course would make the final product. But the laths were made in thirty two and forty eight lengths. Project JE: What type of wood was used to make those laths? MB: Well the only thing that they could cut in the mill was pine, the Societyvarious pines. Mostly, very little jack pine but primarily white pine and Norway. The other timber such as balsam, popple they were unheard of in those days for lumber they didn’tHistory make very good lumber. But the lath mill as I said was, in fact it was contracted to a man with my same name, Mr. Brown, and it was no relation. Oral JE: No relation. MB: But the man that I liked very well and he Historicalliked me and it was quite very exceptional for a boy that age to be running a lath machines. JE: Ya, working in the mill.History MB: Of course I always aspired to make a little more money and the common in fact from the time I was sixteen years old I never worked for common labor, I always aspired for something higher and I always got it. I was commonly known amongst the people of Deer River as quite a hustler as a kid so I had no problem getting a job, in fact jobs came probably too easy because I worked inForest every mill thatMinnesota Deer River had, except the Plane Mill, and I never did work in the Plane Mill. There was one other mill, that I haven’t mentioned is what they called the Box Factory, I never made boxes, but it was operated and owned by the Raphar, Hare and Ridgeway Company who were subsidiary of the Armor Company, and the entire product went to the packing plants, but only as lumber, there were no blocks this way.

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