100 Great Duluthians include business leaders, educators and pioneers
 

Tom West
Budgeteer News

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a series of three articles recognizing 100 Great Duluthians. The last article will appear Sunday.

Jump to Mr. Burrows

A century ago, it was said that Duluth had more millionaires per capita than any city in America. We don’t know if that is true, but the business leaders listed below stand out not for the amount of money they made but for the unique achievements of their lives.

Duluth has also been blessed over the years with many outstanding educators at all levels. There are literally hundreds of teachers alone that deserve to be on the list that follows because of the positive effect, great and small, that they have had on their students’ lives.

The final section of this article features Pioneers and Inventors — those people who helped shape Duluth by going somewhere that no one had gone before.

 

Business leaders

1. Julius Harland Barnes — He served as president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and was appointed by President Herbert Hoover to a committee post. He was a promoter of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a supporter of the YMCA, established the original Duluth Boat Club and donated facilities including the indoor swimming pool, and supported water sports that won national recognition for Duluth.

2. Fannie Overman Goldfine Benton — (1902-1973) A Russian immigrant, she was the co-founder, along with her husband Abe Goldfine, of the Goldfine business interests that included the Trading Post and Goldfine’s By the Bridge at one time, and today includes hotels nationwide and the Vista Fleet in Duluth. She did all of the bookkeeping, accounting, banking and ran the credit department. During World War II, they could not get farm machinery to sell, so she added a furniture department that prospered. Her husband died in 1950, but she continued as president until her death, working with her sons Erwin and Manley. In 1960, when Goldfine’s By the Bridge was being planned, secondary financing backed out, but Fannie was able to arrange new financing within 48 hours. When it opened, Fannie stood at the front door greeting customers for the first 30 days.

3. Arthur M. Clure — (1900-1956) An attorney, Clure Public Terminal in the harbor is named for him. He was active in Boy Scout work most of his adult life, was secretary of Duluth’s Isaak Walton League, pushed for the St. Lawrence Seaway, was an advocate for Duluth State Teachers College, and instrumental in elevating the campus to become a branch of the University of Minnesota in 1946.

4. Richard L. Griggs — A banker, he served as a regent of the University of Minnesota, helped Duluth State Teachers College become a branch campus of the University of Minnesota, and then assisted the university in securing a large tract of land for the campus, including contributing some of his own land. Griggs Field on campus is named for him.

5. Louis Leopold — A German immigrant, along with his brothers Asa and Henry, he opened Duluth’s first mercantile house, Leopold’s Shanty Store. It was first advertised in the Duluth Minnesotian newspaper on May 29, 1869, as having “fully assorted goods.” The Leopolds were the first Jewish residents of Duluth.

6. Robert Mars Jr. — The chairman of the W.P. & R.S. Mars Co. is the rare businessman who also has sought and held public office. He was recently the leading vote-getter among six candidates for an at-large seat on the Duluth Board of Education. He will be serving his third term, beginning in January. He first served on the board in the early 1960s, serving as chair of the Duluth School Board in 1963. He has been involved in numerous civic activities, including serving on the College of St. Scholastica and the Marshall School boards of trustees, the boards of Minnesota Power, the Great Lakes Aquarium, Woodland Hills, the Duluth-Superior Community Foundation and the Iron Mining Association of Minnesota and the board of the Voyageurs Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He was an Eagle Scout and served as Scoutmaster of Troop 43 for many years. He is active in Men as Peacemakers and regularly reads to children in their classrooms. In 1991, he received the American Eagle Award, as the oustanding executive of the national Industrial Distributors Association.

7. Andreas Mitchell Miller — (1840?-1917) A Danish immigrant, he arrived in Duluth in 1870. He amassed a fortune through lumbering activities and land speculation. He was considered the wealthiest individual in Duluth in the 1880s. He built one of the city’s most important buildings, the Lyceum Theater, in 1891. After the death of his only son in 1912, he lived primarily in New York City. However, he willed $600,000 for the construction of a charity hospital in Duluth now known as Miller-Dwan.

8. Albert LeGrand Ordean — (1856-1928) A banker, he was also the founder of a large Midwest wholesale grocery business, Stone-Ordean-Wells. In the national panic of 1907, he was the administrator of $4 million to stabilize business conditions and keep international grain traffic moving. He was a philanthropist whose estate became the basis for the Ordean Foundation in 1933.

9. Jeno Paulucci — (1917-) In 1946, he borrowed $2,500 and began raising bean sprouts in a rented quonset hut in Grand Rapids. A year later, he started to can sell chow mein. He moved his operations to Duluth in 1948, borrowing $200,000 from the Minnesota Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board. The 20-year loan was repaid in five years. His Chun King Corp. and related enterprises achieved $50 million in annual sales by the mid-1960s. Among his many awards, he received the national Horatio Alger Award in 1965. In 1968, he received the Rizzuto Gold Medal as the Most Outstanding Italian-American in the United States. And in 1972, he was named United States Employer of the Year by the President’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped and the National Association of Manufacturers.

10. Aaron Sandbulte — President of Minnesota Power from 1983 to 1994, he continues to serve as chairman of the board, a position he has held since 1989. He has worked for the company since 1964. He has been exceptionally involved in civic affairs, especially at the College of St. Scholastica, where he served as a trustee for 12 years, including three years as the chairman of the board. In 1995 the college awarded him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters and an endowed chair, the Sandbulte Chair of Business and Ethics. He has served as chairman of the Lake Superior Center and of the UMD Chancellor’s Advisory Committee, and as a member of the Iowa State University Foundation Board of Governors. The Duluth Jaycees named him “Boss of the Year” in 1974. In 1995, he won Financial World’s Silver Award, the highest award given for the electric utility industry.

 

Educators

1. D.H. Bohannon — He came from Mankato to serve as president of the Duluth Normal School from 1901 to 1938. Duluth Normal School was the predecessor of the Duluth State Teachers’ College that eventually became the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

2. Robert Burrows — (1917-1994) A demanding East High School teacher of history and English for decades, he was much beloved by his students. He was noted for giving three pop quizzes per week and once said, “There should be razor blades on the backs of seats so you lean forward — alert!” He took students to the Twin Cities on a regular basis: to the Northrup Auditorium to see the opera and to the Guthrie Theater to see Shakespeare. Every few years, he also took students on a trip to England. In the last years of his life, friends and former students contributed more than $25,000 for his health care.

3. Ida B. Cook — Founder of the Hebrew School in Duluth, and long active in charitable causes.

4. Arthur F.M. Custance — Educated at Oxford University in England, he taught Latin at Central High School from 1892 to 1926. He also served as choirmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal church over the same time span. He was also an organist and a composer. Ten years after his death, a musical program, including a choir of 35 voices, was held in his memory.

5. Dr. Raymond Darland — UMD provost from 1953 to 1976, he worked at UMD for 33 years building the institution from a small college into a university center leading to its present enrollment of over 8,000 student population. The Darland Administration Building was named in his honor in 1981 upon his retirement from the university.

6. Robert E. Denfeld — (1853-1921) While serving as superintendent of Duluth schools from 1885 to 1916, 34 new buildings were constructed, including Central High, which opened in 1892. He introduced modern educational philosophy and methods, reorganized the school curriculum, opened the first evening school, and inaugurated the free textbook system — the first in the state. The 1926 Denfeld High School building was named for him.

7. Joseph A. Gallian — A professor of mathematics at UMD since 1972, he has received many teaching awards including: the Horace T. Morse Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education in 1976; the Jean G. Blehart Distinguished Teacher Award in 1984; and three national awards for teaching from the Mathematical Association of America. As an aside, his course on his favorite rock group, the “Beatles,” has introduced him to a broader-than-math student population.

8. Mother Scholastica Kerst — (1847-1911) Born in Muringen, Prussia, this Benedictine Sister came to Duluth in 1881, where she opened four schools: Sacred Heart, St. Mary Star of the Sea, St. Anthony and St. Jean schools. Her lifelong goal, to create an institution of higher education, was realized only a year after her death. The College of St. Scholastica was created in 1912 by the Benedictines.

9. Elsie Martin — A teacher and counselor at Denfeld High School, she served her students beyond the expectations of any educator, and helped many students who were in need of help and guidance.

10. Ruth Myers — She was a long-time Ojibwe education leader, who in the 1979s and 1980s served on the State Board of Education, the Duluth School Board, as director of American Indian Programs at the UMD School of Medicine, on the State Advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and as an advocate for women.

 

Inventors & Pioneers

1. Jeremiah Eugene Cooley — An early settler from New York State, he was a pioneer historian with a phenomenal memory for people. In 1925, he wrote the book “Recollections of Early Days in Duluth.” He held both city and state offices.

2. Joshua Culver — He was not only the first mayor of Duluth but the first St. Louis County superintendent of schools. He served as a colonel in the Civil War and was involved with many fraternal organizations.

3. Anne C. Filiatrault — (1891-1984) In 1929, this mathematics teacher at Washington Junior High School became the first woman to solo as a pilot at the Duluth Municipal Airport.

4. William H. “Bill” Magie Jr. — (1903-1982) This long-time conservationist and wilderness advocate was among the first to crusade for preserving the northeastern Minnesota wilderness that became the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. In 1949, he founded the environmental group, Friends of the Wilderness. One of Duluth’s earliest pilots, in 1923, on a $50 bet, he flew a Curtiss Jenny biplane under the Aerial Lift Bridge, did a half-loop and flew back over the bridge. His pilot license (Number 8) was signed by Wilbur and Orville Wright. After he retired in 1963, he was a Boundary Waters guide to such notables as Sen. Hubert Humphrey, anthropologist Margaret Mead and entertainer Zsa Zsa Gabor.

5. Alexander McDougall — This Scottish shipbuilder and inventor of the whaleback vessel known as the “pig boat,” came to Duluth at age 21. He had shipyards in Duluth and Superior and built 45 whalebacks. The vessel, the Meteor, still survives as a museum. His last patent was issued after his death for development of peat fuel.

6. Alfred Merritt — (1847-1926) He arrived in the area at age 9 in 1856.

After growing up in Oneota, he became the first tugboat captain in the Duluth-Superior area. With his brother Leonidas, he built the first commercial vessel, the Chaska. He was best known as one of the “Seven Iron Men” who discovered the Mesabi Iron Range at Mountain Iron. Out of loyalty to Duluth, as president of the Duluth, Mesabi & Northern Railroad, he directed construction of the 26 miles of track from Columbia Junction into Duluth and Duluth’s first iron ore dock. He also was twice elected as commissioner of the St. Louis County Board in 1888 and 1890. He had eight children, one of whom was Glen J. Merritt, Duluth’s postmaster for 30 years.

7. George Riley Stuntz — (1820-1902) This deputy U.S. surveyor arrived on Minnesota Point in 1852, platted the area, cut roads and laid the Vermilion Trail. He had the first trading post on Minnesota Point. He surveyed in Wisconsin first, to make it easier for people to get to Minnesota.

8. Otto Swanstrom — A Swedish immigrant, he came to Duluth at age 16. He founded the Diamond Calk Horse Shoe Company in 1901. The calk horseshoe that he invented replaced forge and anvil work, and his patented drive calk replaced the screw calk. Calks are studs that protrude from horseshoes. The calks made it easier for horses pulling heavy loads to keep their footing on slippery terrain. The company eventually became Diamond Tool Co. Swanstrom said he wanted the name “Diamond” to mean the same to horseshoes as “Sterling” meant to silver.

9. Walter Van Brunt — A historian, he was the editor of the 1921 three-volume comprehensive “History of Duluth and St. Louis County.”

10. Henry Wakeman Wheeler — (1821-1906) A first settler, he arrived in Duluth in April 1855. With Edmund F. Ely, he built the city’s first sawmill at Oneota (at 45th Avenue West and Bayfront). He was the dredge operator in 1871 who cut the Duluth canal. The 28-acre tract of land between 34th and 37th Avenues West and Grand Avenues was named Wheeler Field for him.

 
 

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