The first three generations settled in Aurora (Part 1).  The first generation people were immigrants and had a dream of a home, family, and opportunity.  They started with only what they brought from their homelands and a homestead.  The second generation suffered through the depression of the 1930’s and enjoyed the boom through the post war years of the 1940’s and 50’s.  Amazingly, most told the third generation children to leave the town to fulfill their dreams.  They, as their immigrant parents did, sacrificed and gave part of their own lives to give those children the possibility to fulfill their dreams.

Most of the third generation left the town and Aurora had become a “giving town” much like the “giving tree” in a children’s book.

But the fifies were good times; Aurora was joined by the new town of Hoyt Lakes.  That town was built in two years out a wild semi-open woods five miles east of Aurora.

Hoyt Lakes was the result of a researcher, in the 1920’s, for the University of Minnesota.  He postulated the idea of taking low grade iron ore, aggregating the iron in that rock into high density ore and shipping the result to the smelters.  He came up with idea in the 1920’s and perfected it in the late 1940’s.

The state and town made a decision to mine the ore.  Construction started on a $300 million taconite plant in 1954.  There were few delays.  The town of Hoyt Lakes was built at the same time.  The plant opened in 1957.  The new town and mine went to work pelletizing iron ore.

With the Erie mine came a new wave of people to mine the ore and run the taconite plant.  It was a multi-generational group that settled in Hoyt Lakes with the original settlers and the people in Aurora.  The new and the old became one over the next 10 years.  The new wave of people mixed with the third generation that stayed.

An Aurora old timer once remarked, that guy from Hoyt Lakes just called someone a “packsacker”.  A “packsacker” is a derogatory term on the iron range meaning a person who was temporary to the town and someone to watch out for since a “packsacker” often would charge things in the local stores and “pull up stakes” one night and be gone.  The old timer respected what the guy from Hoyt Lakes said.  What the old timer was really saying is that Hoyt Lakes people were no longer “packsakers”.

Both towns were alive through the 60’s.  Aurora/Hoyt Lakes high school skated its first season in 1959-1960 on outdoor ice in Hoyt Lakes.  The outdoor rink was across the street from the Ice Arena and had a two room warming shack for the players between the game periods.

The Blackhawk team struggled their first season, their best player was “Totsy” Marinsek.  International Falls sent their junior varsity to play them in their regular season game at the outdoor rink and easily beat the Blackhawks by a dozen or more goals.  In that game, the two teams had to split the third period in the nets to even game time in the same nets.  The west goal crease caught the sun most of that day and the ice melted.  The goalies had to play in a pool of water.

During the January games, fans can still remember the players coming out of the warming shack amid snow banks skating onto the ice with foggy breaths.  An ice arena was built in Hoyt Lakes.

When a mini-bust hit the town in the late 70’s, a number of families found their houses underwater and themselves out of a job.  Most hung on because like their parents did during the depression, they knew they had invested in their life in their children.  A number had to leave and the banks foreclosed.  Good times came back briefly in the 80’s, but 2000 was coming, the taconite mine would close.

The two towns kept their families together and their children’s dreams alive.  They encouraged their children to leave and with them leaving, went the talents of a new generation and with it the opportunity for the town to grow.  The two towns are a great place to raise kids, but only if you could find a job.  The Erie plant closed around the turn of the century.

Today there is a simple reality for Aurora/Hoyt Lakes.  Like the “giving tree” the towns have become more “stump like”.  In Aurora, there are empty lots where once stood houses, houses built by the preceding generations of residents.  The empty lots are maintained by the city.  Outside the town, vacant houses have fallen into disrepair and crumble as Mother Nature overtakes them.
These vacant lots and run down houses on country roads were the dreams of those first five generations and the launching pads for the today’s generation.

The Hoyt Lakes Ice Arena no longer has a high school hockey team.  The Aurora/Hoyt Lakes High School had become the Mesabi Giants and the Mesabi Giants eventually combined with Eveleth.  Today, high school games are skated out of the Eveleth Hippodrome.

Today, after years of struggling through years of federal government studies on the impact of mining on the rock outcropping where Erie mined taconite for 50 years, two mines are planning to open in the Hoyt Lakes area.  If they do, it will have made the current generation’s investment and decision to stay with the towns, worthwhile.

The new mines will process rock to aggregate metals.  The iron mine will ship the aggregate to “mini-mill” foundries in the east on existing railroads through existing harbors.  That aggregate is needed by “mini-mills” to re-purpose scrap metal.  The new iron mining is all about re-cycling waste material at the old mines to combine with re-cycled scrap iron and steel at “mini mills” to make better steel.

Hoyt Lakes Mayor Mark Skelton said it best to YHH.  “Unlike prior mining, these new mines will use new processes to make the end product.  More importantly, the new mines have ore deposits that will take 200 years to mine thus creating jobs for the towns and stability.  Now it is in the interest of both towns and the mines to establish stability through jobs and to keep more of the next generation of children and to grow the opportunities for that generation”.

Last season, the Minnesota Iron Rangers played a number of games in the Hoyt Lakes arena and drew 300 or so people to a game.  That was a good number for the team.  But at the end of last season, the owner was planning to move the team.  Rather than lose the team, a group of Aurora/Hoyt Lakes citizens bought the independent junior hockey team.  This past summer, working with the Hoyt Lakes city government, they have put together an operating plan.  The team will play the 2013-2014 season out of the Hoyt Lakes arena.

Local people will volunteer their work to support the team.  For them it is a small generational sacrifice, one of many.  The towns keep giving.

Part III will review the Minnesota Iron Rangers and be posted later this week.