TOWER — The Burgess family settled in Tower in 1894, shortly after Tower and Soudan were founded. And the family’s many businesses over the years tell a story of the history of Tower and Soudan.
“There were so many things they were involved in,” said Steve Burgess, who told the story of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents to a full house at the Lamppa Civic Center on Aug. 29 during a talk sponsored by the Tower-Soudan Historcal Society.
“Was there a sign out on the highway that said free beer?” asked Burgess as he was busy adding more chairs to the edges of the room to accommodate the well over 100 people in the audience.
Burgess thanked his family members who helped him with his research, as well as his cousin Robin Burgess, married to the late Gary Burgess, who had collected and saved a lot of the family’s business paraphernalia.
“Talk to the people who have your family’s information before it’s too late,” he said. “I could have found out much more from my dad and uncles.”
Burgess researched the family’s business history through old newspaper archives.
“You go down into a rat hole,” he said.
He noted there were a lot of Burgess family members who had come back home for the talk.
“You can tell a Burgess,” he said. “You just can’t tell them much!”
Steve’s great-grandfather, John Nelson Burgess, moved to Tower from Crookston in 1894. The family opened a store, selling fresh eggs for 19 cents a dozen, according to advertisements he found in old papers. He was a farmer, sold horses and cows, had a dairy, and he also worked on the railroad.
Steve’s grandfather, Albert (Bert), worked for the railroad between Ely and Tower, but then he decided to try his hand at other things. He leased the Tower Opera House building in 1909, showing movies and hosted wrestling matches. He then started selling cigars. He married and then opened a service garage in 1919 on Main Street, selling Studebakers, Dodges, and Overlands.
“Think of the road system back then,” Burgess said. “It was pretty poor.”
Pretty soon they had a thriving wrecker business. And while there weren’t many photos taken of the service garage, Burgess said the family archives did have a photo of every single wrecker the business owned over the years.
In 1923, the business got electricity, which meant the Rex Theater, located next door, also got electricity.
In 1926 they started to sell Chevrolets, and in 1929 moved to the corner of Birch and Main St. (which then eventually became Vermilion Fuel and Food, and now Odegaard’s Lake Vermilion). Bert and an employee would take a train down to Duluth, and then they would drive the new cars back up to Tower, probably an all-day adventure.
Bert bought his family home, still standing on South Second St., behind the garage, which housed their large family of eight kids, which included Steve’s father Dell.
Steve’s grandmother, Josie, was a legend of her own, known throughout town for her chicken-butchering skills. A family friend told Steve the story about Jo saving the feathers from the chickens and using them to stuff pillows that went to the family’s hunting shack by Moccasin Point on Lake Vermilion. Chicken feathers, it turns out, are much too sharp to use in pillows. The boys out at the hunting shack woke up with bloody faces from being poked, according to a story told by John Aronson.
Steve showed a hand-written letter from Josie’s mom, written from the hospital in Duluth after she delivered yet another baby. She told her son-in-law she wanted to name this baby “Enough,” since they already had enough children.
Growing up with an automotive garage meant the boys were all tinkerers. Anything with an engine was fair game. They had snowmobiles, boats, all sorts of cars and trucks, wind sleds (no brakes, could go 65 mph on the ice), and eventually airplanes.
“Boating was an important part of life back then,” he said, “and it still is today.”
They built their own water skis, raced large motorboats, raced cars, and flew airplanes and seaplanes.
The Burgess family members operated a seaplane service out of Pike Bay and a marina on Birch Point.
The marina was the first to offer boat storage off the water. It sold boats and motors, and the store sold groceries, boating supplies, and ice cream.
“I had my first can of beer there,” Burgess said.
His uncle, Jack, gained some notoriety when Newsweek magazine ran a story about his encounter with a wolf when flying across Putnam Lake (between Soudan and Ely) while out giving a flying lesson. Jack dropped down to give his passenger a better look, and the wolf jumped up on the plane’s ski and the plane flipped over on the ice. When they didn’t return as planned, searchers hiked out on snowshoes and found them, and they got home by evening. Burgess Aviation was relatively short-lived. Someone broke into the hangar and was smoking a cigarette. The aviation fuel exploded, burning up the hangar.
But the Chevrolet business continued, adding inventory year over year.
“If it had a motor, they sold it,” said Burgess. “Refrigerators, lawnmowers, snowmobiles, and scooters.”
Burgess Chevrolet employed many area residents on top of the Burgess boys. Employees would go across the street to Martilla Drug at 9 a.m. each morning for coffee, leaving Dell to man the gas pumps. Coffee was 5 cents a cup. When they returned, Dell took his coffee break. At the end of the workday, the employees would pool their money to buy a six-pack of beer. The brothers worked in the service shop which stayed open until 8 p.m. The place was a popular hangout.
“People would just come in and shoot the bull,” Burgess said. After the shop closed, they would have time to work on their own machines.
Burgess talked about the life lessons he acquired when helping out his father, uncles, and cousins at the various Burgess family businesses.
“I learned how to drive a three-on-three transmission, learned all about ping pong, water skiing, how to make change, how to operate a forklift, and use a CB radio.”
“The most important thing I learned,” he said jokingly, “what that my cousin John was a pretty good shot because he shot me in the butt with a BB gun.” John Burgess, sitting the audience, promptly yelled, “I didn’t do it!”
The family business was an honest one, Burgess said. When they bought a used car from a local pastor (who was buying a newer car) and were able to sell it for a better price than they expected, they gave him some more money back.
“Who does business like that?” Burgess asked.
One time, someone came in on a Saturday afternoon and needed their boat motor fixed right away. The service garage was closed, but they told the customer if he would stay up front and pump gas for their customers, they would fix his motor.
“The Burgess crew was an amazing group,” he said.
Burgess Chevrolet shut down in 1980. It was operated for a few years once again as a service garage by Jerry Johnson, but then Terry Wagoner bought the building and operated Vermilion Fuel and Food gas station and convenience store. Earlier this year, it was sold and is now Odegaard’s Lake Vermilion convenience store.
This history talk will be available online at some point in the future on towersoudanhistory.com.