when you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up I wanted to be the host of a series of educational YouTube videos featuring quirky stories from Minnesota's past but let's say you wanted to be a mail carrier who's your role model for that anyway our mailman has a long day no no thank you instead you'll want to look to the fastest coolest dog sleddingiest most bad Male carrier who ever lived Minnesota's own John bear Greece welcome to Minnesota Historia I'm Haley your Guide to the legend of John bear Greece if you've already heard of John bear grease it's probably because there's a sporting event named after him we call it the the premier sled dog race in the lower 48 states this is Mike Keyport he's drawn bear grease's great grandson and a race official for the John bear grease sled dog Marathon Racers travel 300 miles from a bar in Duluth to a casino in Grand Portage so if you're a dog who likes to drink and then gamble this is the race for you it really took off because there was some local mushers here around the Cook County area that did their own sled dogging and they said well we got to call it something what are we going to call this race Hortons mod Dale and somebody remembered that John bergeries delivered mail via sled dog and it clicked John bear grease was born in 1858 that's the same year Minnesota was born as a state twinsies John was born here in Beaver Bay Minnesota they built a whole sign about it and he did live in a wigwam right on Lake Superior and the Beaver River later as development happened of course they did get into a house young John grew up hunting and fishing and running with his dogs in the Minnesota Wilderness in his teens he worked as a sailor on Lake Superior I found no evidence that he dreamed of growing up to carry letters and catalogs and packages but he was ideally suited for it if he wanted to deliver the mail here in the late 1800s before there were roads or cars or airplanes you had two options neither of one of them is great option one the cold unforgiving death trap that is Lake Superior good luck with the not drowning in a watery gray thing option two the rocky roadless tree choked terrain of the North Shore good luck with the moose and the Bears and the not getting hopelessly lost unless of course your John bear Grease John bear grease doesn't get lost there was a trail that was used basically by the natives some of these Trails him and his brother made themselves when they learned of this federal government mail contract it was kind of a no-brainer because we're already using these Trails so they'd sign a contract every year with the federal government in 1870 a week to be to Theodore in the winter he usually went by dog sled the summer was for sailing he made a makeshift canoe and actually put a sail on it yeah he not only knew the land but he knew the lake they nicknamed him the renowned pilot of Lake Superior despite being famous for dog sledding John bear grease actually preferred the lake the trail was rough because of the terrain here on the North Shore it's mountainous it's hilly it's up and down I don't know how many streams and rivers you crossed but it was much easier to use Lake Superior when ice would form on Lake Superior he would skip the trail because it was quicker to go on Frozen water but Lake Superior being Lake Superior had shifting ice which had to have been extremely dangerous of course carrier on the North Shore his bro and a man named Louis Plante often covered the route north of grammaray but John bear grease was the most famous people loved him he not only brought physical mail but he brought information and news people in the town would hear them Bells coming and they as he got to the post office the community would all come together and he was tireless you know the old saying the mail must go through and he would make it happen one way or another this episode of Minnesota Historia is brought to you by bear grease that was a fake commercial break but I do want to talk to you about bear grease for a moment bear grease is a slightly more disgusting term for Bare fat and I am not body shaming these Bears they're supposed to be fat it's for hibernation just as nature intended bear hunters melt it down kind of like you would rendering the fat from a from a pig now I don't use bear grease in my daily life but once upon a time everyone did for everything cooking grooming hair face painting waterproofing conditioning hides lubricating insect repellent and as a cure for baldness because bears are so hairy no really that was their thinking speaking of bear grease our John baragree stopped delivering mail on April 26 1899. early on there was probably only a couple three four communities and as time went then there was more post office stuff more post offices meant more mail and the trail John bear grease had expertly navigated for so many years was now a big boring Road Penny Rando with a horse and buggy can deliver mail on that John bear grease died in 1910 after rescuing another mail carrier from a Lake Superior storm this is the picture of ground bear Greece at his end of life and that's the picture my mother doesn't like but I do because I think it's a very realistic picture after all them years of work and that might be the end of our story if it weren't for the sled dog Marathon the only other thing is if you're not aware that we've had these mailbags for a year it says bear grease station on them but each and every year every musher in the marathon is legally sworn in as an official United States mail carrier they what they carry it from start to finish of the race actual United States mail some please stand so they actually have a United States postal service representative come to Opening Ceremonies and they all stand there I state your name and legally get sworn in as Male carrier for three days and then they don't get to carry mail anymore but the veterans they look forward to it I think some of the rookies go what what am I doing you know I'm doing what I'm carrying mail what yeah that was my exact reaction no packages oh we'll leave that to John Mayer Greece because apparently he could handle it but and that's not the only way they honor John bear grease as mushers go out of the shoot we let them go every two minutes keeping them a little distance apart logistically for a safer start but somebody came up with the idea that John bergeries should be the first musher out it's a great day in the Northland we actually have Ken Bueller do our announcing each and every year they do a countdown 10 9 8 7 and when it gets to one John bear Grace is out the Chute he will be the first one out of now and he leaves now John bear Greece migwish John bear Greece big wish and it's it's a most people get it and you know there's a lot of hype at the beginning of the race but at that time everybody kind of hushes what a beautiful way to honor John bear Grace I did not know there was going to be a supernatural element to this story John bear grease running with his dogs more than 140 years after he started that rolls hello I've been asked to make an interstitial for Minnesota Historia an interstitial is a short piece of video that plays before or after during your regular programming to encourage you to keep watching so to be clear what you are watching at this very instant is not regular programming and I don't know why I feel compelled to explain things to people it's like a sickness anyway please just keep watching Minnesota has much to offer travelers to the state beautiful lakes Majestic trees this weird magnetic rock on the gunflank trail you might not think Minnesota would need to trick tourists into visiting its many attractions but you would be wrong welcome to Minnesota Historia I'm Haley your guide to Minnesota's tourist traps this is a tourist trap this is also a tourist trap I would argue these are tourist traps too they're just a slightly different animal so to speak a tourist trap is any traction built near a highway designed to lure Cars full of tourists into stopping and spending their money which isn't necessarily A Bad Thing many tourist straps offer wholesome family entertainment like a fun Museum or a petting zoo maybe miniature golf and they sold the things Travelers needed most tiny Flags magnets shaped like States cultural misappropriation I don't resent tourist traps I just want to understand them better let's start with the history of how Minnesota first started attracting tourists 1917 the Great War raged across Europe Bolsheviks revolted in Russia meanwhile Minnesota just wanted more tourists to spend money here that year the 10 000 Lakes of Minnesota Association was formed it was the first organized effort to attract tourists to our state they came up with a nickname land of ten thousand lakes they also came up with the bread and butter state which seems less inclusive for dairy or gluten intolerant Travelers Minnesota had a lot to offer plus our summers were noticeably cooler the tourist Association came along at just the right time for America's growing middle class which finally had Leisure Time and cars and places to drive by 1930 Minnesota boasted 2600 miles of paved roads the number of resorts exploded every year there were more campgrounds Parks restaurants highways and of course gift shops get ready for some more dates history nerds in 1926 Highway 61 was established from the Canadian border to the Crescent hugging the Mississippi River in the South and Lake Superior in the north it's actually the prettiest Road in the entire world just my opinion in 1933 the state tourism Bureau took over for 10 000 Lakes because tourism had boomed from a one million dollar a year business to more than 100 million it was an era of excitement and adventure and freedom on the open road unless of course you weren't white brief but important tangent you're probably familiar with the green book guides published from 1936 to 1966 but New York mail carrier Victor Greene they listed businesses that were guaranteed safe for black travelers to visit without discrimination in every state including Minnesota it listed hotels like London Road Court in Duluth restaurants like hermann's steaks in Motley and yes even early tourist traps like the covered wagon in St Paul the covered wagon was a restaurant shaped like a covered wagon and it got listed almost every year total win-win for Travelers by the mid 60s civil rights legislation made Green books somewhat less necessary and they stopped publishing at the exact same time Minnesota was building its interstate highway system travel was more accessible to more people than ever before welcome to the Golden Age of the Minnesota tourist trap we just call ourselves a classic tourist trap as in classic it's a derogatory term for for an honorable profession as far as I'm concerned that's Bill weckman proprietor Tom's locking camp on the North shore of Lake Superior if you doubt his commitment to wholesome family entertainment just watch him gently Shepherd this beautiful butterfly out of his gift shop out the door there we go shoot him up he's gone it was a morning cloak butterfly it was my first butterfly this year of course there are many other classic tourist traps operating in the state there's the Spam Museum the Mall of America the world's largest sugar beet puts that one down in uh Treasure City Treasure City still operating people talk about that logging Camp is one of the best examples of a tourist trap still standing in Minnesota because it has not changed in decades and we don't change anything that we haven't had to if there's no reason to do it we don't do it well it started in 1956 started by Tom debock the gift shop was the focus and then he had a lot of stuff that he'd collected over the years he's not joking there's a lot of stuff all the stuff that they use for logging with horses and it's in eight different buildings out there harness shop Barn Bunkhouse cook Shack blacksmith shop I'm intrigued tell me more we're going to take a quick tour of Tom's logging camp edit that out that was really cheesy now our editor doesn't listen to me that's why I look so ridiculous most of the time and it's a it's a self-guided tour this is a history of logging in in the northern states that this is the harness shop warehouse and chewing stall nailed it now we're heading for the chainsaws so this is the chainsaw display which is not period appropriate but it's become one of the most popular things that we do well this is the blacksmith shop we've got all the explanations of what you're seeing this guy this guy really needs to be in the woods he does not need to be in town so this is the bunk house this is the basic Transportation building I'm sorry to interrupt the tour but I think we skipped the Cook Shanty we cannot skip the cooked shanty nightmare mannequins are a staple of tourist traps gravity house that's what we call it we've got the animals and the fish and the gravity house and the nature trail and things like that for mostly the kids another classic Staple in many tourist traps straying slightly off brand that's the odds and ends building that's the doesn't necessarily mean anything to everything else you've done today building so this Camp has an electric chair and that's that'll conclude the tour that is right on the edge that is that is that's that's a little dicey bill doesn't like the electric chair but he's also reluctant to change anything even if it's a spoon on a wall you don't move it you don't do anything but you never know who's going to remember what the Greek god Nostalgia isn't charged here it's too late too late to do anything about it you know I brought my dad to see your chair hope is still out there the tour at Tom's logging Camp is pretty wild but as it is with any tourist prep Tom's beating heart is its gift shop I'm the purveyor of high grade stupid stuff candy cigarettes rattlesnake eggs in the envelope slingshots four Bears the old wire wrapped plastic Club mood ring these flavored sugar sticks switchblade Combs if we can find any of that stuff we still stock it always because that's that's what you found back then when you were a kid because everything changes and it's changing faster now it's terrible when things you love go away this is why I've closed my heart off to so many things why bother to love these tourist traps if they're just going to leave you like everything leaves you yeah there's been there's been a lot of things gone by the wayside like Split Rock trading post a gift shop that featured a caged bear as an attraction first no that was up the shore tourists would feed the poor Critter marshmallows and that that's gone Shadows of others remain like Paul Bunyan's playground in Bemidji Paul and babe are still there obviously but if you want to experience the Glory Days of tourist traps in Minnesota you're a few decades late most of that kind of thing has been it's been replaced by something usually something with gas pumps or something yeah just goes away I'm sorry let's turn this thing around and try to end on a positive note remember we have a room full of chainsaws we have creepy Lumberjack mannequins we have flavored sugar sticks don't go away we have more episodes of Minnesota Historia coming up in 1962 at the beginning of the Space Race at the height of the Cold War who posed the biggest threat to the American way of life was it Nikita Khrushchev or Yuri Gagarin no it was this guy the one with four legs not the humans because on November 13th 1962 the United States government sentenced him to death welcome to Minnesota Historia I'm Haley your guide to Mr Magoo the Mongoose and other animals in wrong places imagine you're the director of the Lake Superior zoo I am the director of the Lake Superior zoo I know but I meant you're the director in 1962 and also you're a man named Lloyd Hackle you get a phone call on September 10 1962 from a sailor he has a mongoose for sale and he wants you to meet him at the Docks now if I'm Lloyd Hackle my first thought is this is the coolest phone call I have ever received I'm living my best life but my second thought is we don't just buy random animals from Sailors but we certainly get a lot of calls of people you know well I have this raccoon sometimes it's a deceased animal would you like it no thank you after Lloyd explains this there's a long pause on the other end of the line he will give it to him for zero dollars basically it's a free Mongoose Floyd agrees to these terms and sends his top Zoo tenants to retrieve the bird the mammal this creature what exactly is a mongoose furry little weasel-like creature First shows up in the fossil record 18.5 million years ago it's a mammal and they're great at killing snakes you'll find them all over Africa and Asia but you know where you'll never find them Minnesota back at the zoo Lloyd Hackle gave the Mongoose a brief physical examination we know it was brief because Lloyd didn't actually know all that much about mongooses and I checked on the plural of mongoose it is mongooses Goose becomes geese moose are still moose but more than one Mongoose is mongooses don't ask me why English is so whack I just work here Lloyd counted five toes on each foot with small non-retractable claws 40 teeth and ears with and I quote amazing fold Construction get yourself a man who looks at you the way Lloyd Hackle looks at Mr Magoo's ears on the ship Mr Magoo had grown accustomed to riding around on his human companion's shoulders he ate raw meat or oatmeal and he preferred his tea with milk and sugar he probably got into it because it was a British like ship right like they must have had tea and obviously was uh very refined so the zoo built him a house and drank tea with him almost every day because Mr Magoo did not like to drink tea alone what I really take from it is Mr Magoo had a personality like none other it feels like he's staring into my soul with like one eye kind of like going this way and I think he's looking at me after two months of this adorable Behavior the Duluth News and Tribune ran a photo of Mr Magoo on Lloyd hackle's shoulder 300 papers picked up the story the public was Charmed except of course for Clarence Bingham a U.S customs agent he recognized the Mongoose as a clear violation of U.S code Title 18 paragraph 42 prohibiting the import or possession of this animal in the United States once the feds found out that we had this illegal alien they were just no he must be executed the federal government recommended that Mr magooby seized and destroyed this did not sit well with Lloyd Hackle we don't have any evidence that he leaked news of this kidnapping and murder plot to the Press but somebody did call started pouring into the zoo and the Duluth mayor's office and the newspaper letters too in all clear we must have else the American Revolution was in vain God help us all the most deadly animal we have in the U.S is that demon communist it is a Pity we don't have billions of mongooses here in the U.S and train them to cut these red communist throats have I mentioned what else was going on in the fall of 1962 it was the Cuban Missile Crisis and it's worse than you think thanks to a completely different animal in a completely different wrong place on October 16th President John F Kennedy learned that the Soviet Union replaced nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba just 90 miles off the coast of Florida right here everyone in the military was on high alert including everyone at the Duluth air defense sector which was a part of the Air Force on October 25th a shadowy figure attempted to scale defense surrounding the Duluth facility okay so obviously it was a bear a guard shot at this so-called mysterious figure again just a bear and the bear ran away meanwhile this triggered an alarm at volkfield in Camp Douglas Wisconsin Pilots there actually started their engines so they could have flown up into the air and shot nukes of things fortunately someone at Volk talked to someone at Duluth who told them not to blow up the world like I said it was a tense time for humans Bears mongooses basically everybody the most clear-headed comments come from Zoo 10 and zookeeper John mealy he spells it out like we're all a bunch of dum-dums saying this is a male Mongoose no females around do you understand even if he did Escape what could he do freeze to death and duluth's temperature of 20 below zero spread a deadly virus that would turn people to Stone run to the woods and mate with a moose and create a monster it's like the Napoleon Dynamite with the liger okay like how cool would that be it'd be wild but looking at him and thinking about a moose I mean come on John mealy concluded by saying no one makes mention that zoos have really dangerous animals and we make it our business not to let anything Escape I have a confession to make I secretly love it when animals escape and show up in wrong places I don't love that like the Phantom kangaroos of Minnesota kangaroos are first spotted here near Anoka in 1957. reports persisted for 10 years of at least one kangaroo with abnormal strength a vicious temperament and a taste for killing pets people named him big bunny in 2005 a phantom kangaroo suddenly showed up outside of Cloquet the zoo got a call so we have two kangaroos we count them every day they live with a wallaby why would you bring the wallaby into this in any case the Phantom kangaroo banished nobody even bothered to give it a funny name Khloe kangaroo was just sitting right there the the idea of an animal being where they shouldn't be is very interesting to humans that includes the Lake Superior Zoo's most famous escaped animal feisty the seal perhaps you've seen the photo last year was a decade since the flood of 2012. and it was because a culvert failed so all of this water backed up into the zoo within 20 minutes and she ended up out on Grand Avenue and just the she she looked scared right and it's a tough thing to talk about I'm starting to regret my previous stance on escaped animals feisty survived but what about Mr Magoo to learn his final fate who returned to 1962. at Duluth City Hall the mayor was losing hope duluth's oldest radio station webc started a desperate no news for the Mongoose campaign the Associated Press reported fish and wildlife agent was already on the way to carry out the death sentence at the zoo director Lloyd Hackle was struggling he said I'm walking around with the key to his life in my pocket and the feeling that I should help plan his Escape it just like Mr Magoo Mongoose from India attracts much attention he is the only Mongoose in the united another fun thing like he was the only Mongoose in the U.S like to have that and I don't know why this isn't here but I absolutely love this picture I don't know what it is it kind of looks like a 1930s glamor shot then November 19th Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall ordered everyone to just chill out nobody was killing Mr Magoo on his watch everybody just take it down a notch and by May of 1963 secretary Udall offered the Mongoose a full Federal pardon it really got people excited which I love and then they they spoke for him because he can't talk so and on behalf of Lloyd Hackle and everyone else involved they were able to you know stand up for him and really make a difference so he got to live he was not executed even President John F Kennedy offered his opinion on the whole Mongoose situation he said let this story of the saving of Mr Magoo stand as the classic example of government by the people and then Mr Magoo died five years later peacefully on January 8 1968 after a long life a forced celibacy and drinking tea with his best buds at the zoo where today you can still see the amazing fold construction of his little taxidermied ears the only reason that he was taxidermied was his fam he is famous and we wanted to have Mr Magoo forever we couldn't let him go definitely yeah it was he's pretty good he's cute oh hello there I almost didn't see you I was cosplaying his bluther the retired PBS North kids mascot if Luther were anything more than a disembodied fuzzy blue head I'm sure he'd ask you to stay tuned for more Minnesota historia here in Minnesota we really like parades we have them for all the normal occasions Christmas Labor Day the 4th of July then we just started making up like Santa Jose fake holiday fake saint but the most Whimsical weirdest and wettest excuse for a parade happens every spring in downtown Duluth and it celebrates a tiny little bug-eyed silverfish that some people put in their mouths we are going to have a smelt parade welcome to Minnesota Historia I'm Haley your Guide to the magic of smelting no I'm not talking about the process of extracting metal from ore using heat and I'm not invoking the flatulent proverb regarding the identity of whosoever may have dealt it I'm talking about Oz married eye that's the scientific name for smelt these silvery little fish usually less than nine inches long here's what they look like if they were puppets these puppets are part of the annual magic smelt parade in Duluth Minnesota in the 1950s 60s and 70s Duluth and smelt were synonymous that's because of the rivers and streams of Lake Superior once attracted thousands of smelters hungry to catch the Randy little fish trying to swim upstream to spawn the smelt run was an annual Rite of Spring like Easter or a new Fast and Furious movie usually in mid to late April people would gather on Shore and scoop up nets and buckets and handfuls of these little silver things I'm told it can be quite pretty shimmering in the night like precious jewels it's almost a religious experience for some smelters then you get to eat them of course you do have to remove their guts but their soft bones and delicate skin means you get to otherwise eat them whole phrases like soft bones and delicate skin are a big part of why I'm a vegetarian and not a serial killer there weren't always smelt in Lake Superior you know that's part of the history that I can describe how they got from Maine which is where the eggs came from to Lake Superior so I'm Dr Tom robbik I'm a professor in the biology department they first appeared in Lake Michigan in 1912. the predecessor to the Michigan DNR brought in millions of eggs and stocked them in multiple different locations it's thought that the Crystal Lake eggplant was the source of the population and then spread rapidly from there so they were in Lake Huron by the late 20s and into Lake Superior by the 30s and subsequently spread throughout most of the lakes and about that same time sea lamprey were also naturally spreading into Lake Superior and sea lamprey are a parasitic invasive species like giant vampire leeches they feasted on the trout that would have been eating the smelt the rainbow smelt in the absence of a predator really had a chance to take off and that's when the party began Dan so I remember collecting them as a kid you didn't really need to bring a net or anything you just show up and grab them with your hands it was like the hottest club in North America thousands of smelters on a beach wearing rubber pants like a carnival atmosphere everybody had you know lanterns going and people having a few Libations of course beer leads to drunkenness and litter and my favorite public urination that was the dark side of the smelt run but like all great parties this one ended with a whimper the smelt population declined drastically in the 1980s The Fishery commission brought the Lamprey down to a point where they could start to try and rehabilitate the lake trout stocks more trout meant less smelt and an important part of duluth's cultural history was suddenly in danger of being forgotten that's when the hero stepped in to save history unlike all great Heroes this one came with puppets we want this to be real like Keystone copy kind of real fun meet Jim uray the co-founder and director of The Magic smelt puppet troop the inspiration for it comes from the springtime smelt run fish they're silvery you see them in the water and they're goofy they run in packs and so we're running in packs too there's an organization called in the heart of the Beast puppet and mask theater and I came to Minnesota to work with them I also you know was curious about similar events in other parts of the world I traveled to Trinidad and went to Carnival and nothing like it certainly in Duluth and I've also been to the second line parades in New Orleans and that was another major influence on the smelt parade second line parades are like regular parades except all the spectators actually joined the parade the first line is made up of the floats and the bands the second line is you the regular Spectators who hit the streets and dance behind the Bands this is not the kind of parade where you sit back passively and let other people throw candy at you I just put two and two together you know I took my background as a puppeteer and some of the festivals that I have visited in other places and I just kind of put it all together and came up with the idea for the magic smelt parade here's how it works uh well we all dress up in silver or gray and we go over there and we explain the origins of the smelt parade kind of and have a bunch of smelt people come out and dance around these are the smelt people you've got your smelt Queen your smelt guards your smelt musicians your smell Sheriff your smelt Pope your smelt mom your smelt baby your smell bought three thousand and they all get together at the beginning of the parade and put on a little pageant where we say the history of the smelt but it's not real um and we just we have a good time now lift up your voices and raise a great cheer all the Magnificent smelt Queen leading up to the parade the magic smelt puppet troop posts workshops we have a basic costume that you know is our smelt character costume and then people come to the workshop sometimes you know one guy said well I want to turn one into a wizard and it's a great let's we need to smelt wizard these workshops are for anyone attending the parade as a performer or as an audience member in My Mind by Design you know there's no distinction between the audience and the performers that is you know it's a moving party and everybody goes down you know the lake walk together no one judges you and uh it's sort of yeah that's what it's all about you can just show up wearing any old thing but again silver and gray are the colors of the day this is my sister's Harvest dress and it's I don't know it's it's a gray dress so I wore it and then I made this with um I cut open a pillow and glued it into my umbrella and then this is just a bag I got at the State Fair the parade starts in Canal Park next to the aerial lift bridge it travels the lake walk to Indian station where it takes a kind of dance break then everyone goes to a theater Lobby and enjoys massive quantities of tiny fried fishes but nobody's doing this for the tartar sauce I've done it every year because it's a fun like activity to do in like Duluth is like a citizen it's a fun thing to participate in and it's a time to get dressed up and just have some fun no no let's think of the the smell Kingdom as this sort of alternate or parallel you know Society below the waves so really anything goes well that was a pretty normal straightforward episode of Minnesota Historia but I still have some basic questions Minnesota real so these things really happen here am I even real you're watching Minnesota Historia a production of PBS North let's dig into the Minnesota historian mailbag and see what people are saying about us Walt dizzo a trivia host and Gad about town rights Minnesota Historia is the only thing worth watching on the internet thank you Mr dizzo that's a good reminder that you can find all of our old episodes on YouTube and and it looks like most of the rest of these are from my mom do you remember what you were doing on the night of April 16th 1902 I'm not accusing you of anything but at 2 am somebody Set Fire to the jail in Epworth Minnesota then same night just hours later somebody else blew up the depot the depot would have been in this general area I mean they just obliterated it what kind of town is this evelist anyway welcome to Minnesota Historia I'm Haley your guide to Minnesota's Boom Town like literally I guess welcome to evelyth home of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame the world's largest hockey stick the Evelyn clown band A Carnegie Library a hippo Drome and one of Minnesota's last remaining video rental stores I sure hope that's still open by the time we're done recording this episode but I am seriously worried about their business model now let's dig into this quirky little town evolith is located in Minnesota's Iron Range see it's right here on the edge of this little orange stuff that orange stuff is the Wasabi range one of several large deposits of iron ore in northern Minnesota there's also a Vermilion range a gun Flint range and a cayuna range which was named after Kyler Adams and his dog Oona that is a true story see here's una in Minnesota we just call this whole general area the Iron Range iron was first discovered here in 1884 by Prospectors looking for gold after that town just started popping up out of the ground like little groundhogs at first it was Tower and then sedan then they they finally found iron a little further south and we got Virginia and Hibbing Evelyn started in 1892 as a bunch of log cabins in a mining camp in 1893 they built streets and buildings and held some elections and then they discovered iron literally everywhere underneath eplist so they decided to move the entire town buildings and all but don't worry they moved entire towns all the time back then nobody thought it was weird I think it's weird this is Tucker Nelson an iron Ranch historian who doesn't think it's weird that they moved the whole town It's Not Unusual to quote Tom Jones so behind me is where Eveleth was born what's now a hole in the ground was the original Town site starting in 1899 the buildings were moved up the hill to where evelop is now is behind the camera in other words is where eveluth ended up so how do you move a whole town it happened more slowly than that with slays end logs and horses they used a steam hoist on what's now Adams Avenue to haul the buildings up the hill the largest building which held the bank newspaper and drugstore was moved in two pieces evelist Dr Charles W Moore complained about it later before the town was moved we had acquired sidewalks and electric lights it was some time before we were so well equipped again he also said everyone took the situation good-naturedly but I have moved cats into new apartments so I seriously doubt that by the way they also moved Hibbing in 1919 which was a much bigger Town check out these photos it really looks like they nailed it this is the kind of thing that happens when you live in a boom town and I don't mean in a town that blows up a lot I'm in a town undergoing rapid growth due to sudden Prosperity although eveluth does blow up a lot too I haven't even told you about the spruce mine Explosion on October 8th 1900. the powder house for the spruce mine exploded the building blew up mines need enormous stockpiles of explosive materials to move all that Earth around newspaper Accounts at the time differ a little bit as to how it may have started the most popular theory is that a stray bullet hit the mines powder house the October 8 1900 Minneapolis Tribune said the town of eveluth presents a sorrowful sight it looks as though a regiment of soldiers had passed through and looted the tone almost every person has either their hands or heads bandaged and the windows are barricaded with any sort of lumber attainable I would hope that they stored their explosives a little bit differently after that event the spruce mine is also notable for having the only movie theater in the world located 200 feet underground in 1925 the owners of the mine turned an unused pump room into the wilsonian auditorium I like to imagine miners watching the Sci-Fi epic Metropolis while snacking on their petitsa and pasties Metropolis is a movie about a futuristic utopian society that mistreats the working class by shoving them underground so you can understand why I dream of showing it to minors in the 1920s there's also a sexy robot but uh they mostly just watched safety films down there but occasionally the men might enjoy a comedy which would have still been silent at the time as the Mind grew this underground theater was almost certainly out of use if not destroyed by the 1940s now let's burn this mother down I'll show you where the jail would have been within hours of each other the city jail caught on fire and the Duluth masabi in Northern Depot which is only a few blocks behind me or was at the time exploded here's how the Virginia Enterprise reported it the new city of Eveleth comes to the fore this week as a news Furniture the fire was started under mysterious circumstances this is eveless City Hall this is where the city jail would have been in 1902 when MJ balm died in the fire that may or may not have been set by him his charred remains were picked from the debris later his features were burned to a crisp and you know this isn't as much fun as I thought it was going to be well I I could say a little bit about the man who died MJ balm was reported to be a finlander even though balm is not a very finished name I don't know what he was arrested for newspaper accounts indicate that he was working at the fail mine but had a wife and children living in Duluth I promise the next crime is more fun a few blocks south if you look down the street there's a small grayish building which is roughly where the Duluth masabi and Northern Depot was located before it blew up and after it blew up it was rebuilt roughly on the same site because this I'm sure this is just a garage the destruction of the masabi depot was doubtless the work of burglars part of the safe was found later with two holes drilled into it it is said there was considerable money in the safe at the time they used far too much nitroglycerin the rest of the depot was obliterated a considerable amount of coin and paper was picked up on property adjoining the wreck the following day now that's a fun crime no deaths no injuries and free money blowing all over you can see in in the one known photo of the aftermath that there are people standing on the remnants of the depot there's a young girl with her father stand on the wreckage and I don't know if they were just curious onlookers or if they were hoping to find some coins or some gold from the safe we don't know like any Boom Town avalith has seen more than its fair share of economic busts yeah downtown eveluth reminds me of a seasoned hockey player that once had all of his teeth but over time has has had many of them knocked out people can't help loving this quirky little town people are very proud to be from Eveleth in a way that I think is is different from from other towns Eveleth has probably the largest Fourth of July celebration around and people come back some something draws them back and people people have a connection to this place thank you for watching watch got more quirky stories coming up faster than you can say oop I'm just going to scooch right past you shortly after midnight on August 27 1979 an unidentified flying object encountered a Marshall County deputy sheriff's vehicle near Stephen Minnesota the incident inspired TVs The X-Files but this is Minnesota so we're going to go ahead and call it the op files as in oh I'm just gonna scooch right past you here welcome to Minnesota Historia I'm Haley your Guide to the op files where we scooch right past the limits of human understanding this is the Marshall County Historical Society Museum in Warren Minnesota here you can visit settlers Square you have family reunions we have weddings out here it's uh it's fun or see a mural which prominently features several Vikings the Vikings supposedly were in Minnesota at some time but by far the most popular item on display is Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson slightly used 1977 Ford LTD also known as the UFO car this car has became more popular in the last 20 years than it was in the previous 20 before that partially I believe because of the internet I think we're going to start our tour going this way to our main attraction this is Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson he was patrolling County Road 5 just outside of Stephen in Northwestern Minnesota as a non-crime doing person who grew up just a few miles south of here I can't even imagine what sort of Nefarious activities a deputy sheriff might be looking for out here at 1 40 A.M as he approached the intersection with Highway 220 things got interesting when he looked to the South he saw light and he turned at the intersection and the light was straight in front of him hovering about three and a half feet off the ground eight to twelve inches in diameter first he thought it was a truck with one headlight burnt out and then he thought well gosh maybe it's a small airplane that crashed and he speeded up to 65 miles an hour this feels like a good time to admit that we spent most of the season's special effects Budget on these cool vintage Maps hadn't driven too far down the road and this bright light came straight at him again have you seen our very cool and very expensive vintage Maps so this is bright light that engulfed this car and light it was bright even with his eyes shut and all I remembered was the sound of glass breaking and then his brakes locking up 39 minutes later Val Johnson woke up he was knocked out and when he came to he called back to the dispatch office he comes on the radio didn't start to panic nothing just say 406 400 I said go ahead 406. he goes 1088 at 20 and 5. said what so we have the 10 codes right there in front so I looking down 1088 well officer needs help okay sorry okay I'm almost panicking you know and uh I said what do you need and he goes I don't know I I hit something or it hit me I says I don't know if it's a moose I don't know I said okay it says I'll get someone out there I was out at uh called out to go out to the incident where the deputy had uh he'd gone unconscious his card somehow traveled another 584 feet and then 99 foot skid marks he was held on the road it seemed like he was held on the road for that distance or he should have rolled over or something because he was passed up and the car come cross racing the road and stopped here's where time becomes relative let's listen to Val Johnson himself speaking at the Manitoba conference on UFO ology on March 16 1980.

I'm starting over the next day or two I understand somebody went up to look at the police car and lo and behold the dash plot was 14 minutes late because I had a tourist spotted exactly for my wristband this is the part of the story The X-Files loved Val Johnson's mechanical wristwatch and the electric clock on his car dashboard were both missing exactly 14 minutes who's to say that you weren't abducted Carl you might have been somewhere else for 14 minutes I don't know like I said there's there's almost 40 minutes of My Life as a deputy sheriff Phil Johnson is a trained Observer he'd be a perfect Witness but only if he's conscious I swallowing the day the foundation the type of guy he is he was a deputy that they said was always very meticulous strictly I mean strictly by the book his timepieces were you know synchronized with dispatch at when a shift started another thing that makes this case unique is that we have physical evidence all over the car smash headlight ding in Hood that's the size of a dime you know where'd that come from smashed windshield puncture in red light bent antenna bent antenna burn mark that is obviously what burned it and it's like this heavy of plastic mysterious scratch mark by aliens what do you personally think the object or whatever it was hits you I think I stumbled across something I wasn't supposed to see that's my personal opinion so what happened out there it's hard to say I you know I lean to something more natural like ball lightning or something but there was a guy that contacted us and he said he could prove it was ball lightning so I sent them pictures of all the damage and never heard from him again could be something from you know from the Air Force Base we called the Grand Forks Air Force to find out what they had seen on their Radars and they had nothing they had seen I tell everybody you know the whole universe has not been explored we don't know what's out there is it something from somewhere else could be it has to be up what we call a UFO it's unidentified that's all we can say because we don't have any idea what it is no idea was the UFO trying to hit the car or instead trying to scooch right past nothing ever hit the car nothing hit it you know physically they could tell but something energy or something went through it and came back out again debris come off the road and busted the windshield and that was from the object that finally decided to take off from wherever it was I'm no UFO expert by any means but to me started low and then went up and up and the windshield the reflectors the antenna and we weren't there to see anything so that's just you could you guess good is mine are you part of a vast government conspiracy meant to conceal the truth from us I am not no no no yeah I read them all by all that stuff too and I I have to don't do that because I just put some bad things in my head you know Val Johnson suffered only minor injuries from the incident he had like welder burns on his eyes and watching too bright light but he's been hassled by curiosity Seekers ever since I think things just got kind of too much for him and the family and they moved out of the area completely curiosity Seekers he told his story so many times and it was getting to be really hard on him just telling the story and he doesn't really want to talk about it anymore he deserves his peace I think so do you even like this car I love having the car it's something that most museums don't have people come up all over the world they call here they come and look at the car there's been people laying on the floor looking underneath the car one guy was here with a black light looking for whatever but we always tell the little kids we're not going to open the trunk and let you see what's in there meanwhile I just made a shocking realization this entire museum is like an episode of Minnesota Historia we draw you in with something flashy like a UFO car or a vintage map then we drop some real history on you that's our Ox cart right there yeah the ox cart was actually used along the Pembina Trail for the Minnesota centennial Delmer Hagen he built this and he had trained an ox and he went from pemina all the way to the cities so you know we have these artifacts here but what really makes it worthwhile is the people that come and I've had seen people where they they've seen some object like they started crying almost because you know it's something their grandfather had or their dad and I had a lady growl into my arm one time she was just in tears so excited about this organ that was her her father-in-law's all museums so they have they have their items and they're all they're all you know relevant to their history and this is relevant to our history so thanks for watching Minnesota Historia your guide to All Things quirky in Minnesota History please become a member of PBS North to support projects just like this