West End News: June 4

 
I enjoyed Brian Larsen’s article in the Cook County News Herald about the history of the Schliep family at the Taconite Harbor power plant in Schroeder. There is no living person with more knowledge of the plant than Jim Schliep of Tofte. 
 
Jim’s son, Tim, and grandson, Jory, work at the power plant now, keeping the Schliep family tradition going forward. The picture in the paper made it clear that the Schlieps are getting taller with each successive generation. If the trend continues, Jory’s kids will be professional basketball players.
 
Unfortunately, the occasion for the Schliep family reunion at the power plant was the permanent closing of Unit 3, the largest and newest of the three turbine units at the plant. Although they are ten years older, Units 1 and 2 were retrofitted with 50 millon dollars worth of pollution reduction equipment about 8 years ago, so as the dirtiest of the three units, #3 had to be closed for owner Minnesota Power to meet clean air regulations.
 
Minnesota Power has been up-front with the community about the closing of Unit 3 and the eventual closing of the entire power plant. That is, of course, a hardship for the West End and the entire region. It’s never a good thing when good paying jobs are lost within our small population.
 
Minnesota Power has looked long and hard at how they could keep the Taconite Harbor Energy Center functioning, but its location and age make every alternative too expensive. There is no hard date for the closing of the remaining two units, but it appears to be inevitable.
 
It’s always difficult when global conditions hit home at the local level, but nothing lasts forever, and there are very good reasons that the old, inefficient coal fired power plants are at the end of their usefulness to society. There could well be another generation’s worth of work at Taconite Harbor as the plant lives out the rest of its life and then is decommissioned.  
 
All we can do as a community is look to the future. If we tap the skills and work ethic of the Schliep family and the many other local people with ties to Taconite Harbor, hopefully we can make the best of a bad situation.
 
The winds of change affect every industry. This season’s display at the Cross River Heritage Center in Schroeder is titled “Lost Resorts.”  It provides a glimpse of more than 50 resorts that operated in the West End since the early 1930s. Only eight of those resorts are still in business today. 
 
On the surface, it sounds like the tourism business has suffered a severe decline, but the opposite is actually true. The tourism economy in the West End is bigger and healthier than it’s ever been. The big reduction in the number of resorts is, in my opinion, the result of market forces that made the little “Ma and Pa” resorts unprofitable, leading to the rise of the large, commercial resorts. Many of the small resorts morphed into large operations. In Tofte, for instance, Olsen’s Resort and Edgewater became Bluefin Bay, with many millions of dollars of new investment.
 
It’s natural to feel nostalgia for the old days, but in my opinion, we’re lucky that all the large resort properties in the West End are still owned by local people who live here and are active in community life. 
 
In any case, I hope you’ll join me in visiting the “Lost Resort” exhibit at the Cross River Heritage Center in Schroeder.
 
Also, mark your calendar for the Schroeder Area Historical Society Annual Meeting at the Heritage Center on Sunday, June 21, starting at 1 pm.  The speaker this year is Tim Cochrane, Superintendent of Grand Portage Monument, who will talk about the American Fur Company which had a strong connection to the West End. Tim is a fascinating speaker with a vast knowledge of our region’s history – and if that isn’t enough – ice cream will be served.
 
It seems like just yesterday that I was talking up an unknown little bike race called the Lutsen 99er. I don’t have to talk it up anymore as it has morphed, in just a few short years, to one of the premiere mountain bike races in the country. It not only provides a big shot of tourism revenue during race weekend, but it has put us on the map as a biking destination. Congratulations to all the West Enders who work so hard on this fantastic event.