Todd Lindahl knows a lot about railroads. He also knows a lot about the old days of logging in northeastern Minnesota, and he has been collecting information on the relationship between the logging industry and railroads for the last 40 years.
Lindahl, a Two Harbors resident, was the featured speaker at the Gunflint Trail Historical Society annual picnic at the future Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center Monday, August 31, 2009. Some of the 100 or so people who were there may have been surprised to find out the number of railroad lines that traversed Cook County years ago. Along with his talk, Lindahl showed slides of the former railroad lines and logging operations.
In 1891, the Duluth and Iron Range Railway (D&IR) decided not to put in a line to Gunflint Lake because the terrain was too rocky and the timber quality was too poor.
The Gunflint and Lake Superior Railroad (G&LS) did put in a line, however, that led around the east end of Gunflint Lake and connected with the Port Arthur-Duluth & Western Railroad (PAD&W).
One of Lindahl’s photos shows Arpin Brothers Logging employees with a six-horse team on an ice road. Lindahl knew the photo was taken on a Sunday because the loggers were all in the woods from dawn until dusk the other six days of the week. The Arpin Brothers were based at Pigeon River, where PAD&W trains would dump logs into the river for transport down the Lake Superior shoreline to Duluth.
In the Duluth harbor, log rafts would sometimes need to wait days for a southwest wind to stop blowing or for big ships to get out of the way before they could deliver their goods.
The Duluth and Northern Minnesota (D&NM) railway, also known as the Alger-Smith line, came within 20 miles of Gunflint Lake and offered fishing excursions on Sundays.
On a good day, loggers would load 16 railroad cars with logs. One photo showed a flatbed rail car that had tipped over into a swamp. Swamps were favored by railroads because they were flat and made laying the lines easier.
TheAlger-Smith line was known as a “common carrier” because it transported not only logs but freight, mail, and passengers as well. Many of the lines throughout the Arrowhead region stopped short of 100 miles to avoid state and federal regulations that required lines over 100 miles to publish a regular schedule and guarantee that they would keep the railway in use. Lines less than 100 miles were called spurs.
The text on one slide stated, “As the tracks progressed, homesteaders moved into remote areas of Lake and Cook counties when assured the railroad was permanent.” People living in Cook County today know that those lines were not permanent, however. A lot of people were “pretty angry about it,” Lindahl said, when the lines past their properties were pulled up.
Duluth & Northern Minnesota railroad president John Miller had big visions for expanding the D&NM line. His vision died, however, when he died suddenly in 1916.
TheGeneral Logging Company was created in 1926, and with it came another spur. One private property owner threatened to sue when the company allegedly put a line through his land, clearing 1,000 trees, without his permission.
The Duluth & North Eastern (D&NE) and General Logging railroads were both run by the Northwest Paper Company in 1929, which became famous for its calendars featuring Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Mounties).
Knife River, Cascade, Gunflint Lake, and Pigeon River were all reached by railroad lines at some point. Four rail lines made it to the vicinity of Gunflint Lake: Duluth and Northern Minnesota, Duluth and North Eastern, General Logging Company Railroad, and the Gunflint and Lake Superior Railroad.
Lindahl showed an old slide of a giant wooden coal dock at Cascade. He showed a slide of another one like it taken at Hornby in the 1970s in which the timbers could still be seen through the creeping vegetation.
During the Depression, a lot of pine trees suffered pine rot, which rotted out the middle of the tree trunks. One worker called the inferior logs “wood culvert pipes,” Lindahl said.
A lot of the railway lines were removed in the 1930s.
In 1982, Lindahl and a friend were the last to ride on the Duluth and North Eastern Railroad before the rails were removed.
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