other local organizations, a successful midsummer festival of the Finns of Northern Minnesota was held.

Cooperative Activity: The first business undertakings in Nashwauk were the numerous boarding houses. Some have already been mentioned; others were those of John Korpela, William Kumpula, Victor Lund, J. Wilson and Anna and William Wirtanen. In all of them lived many Finns, in some as many as 80 to 90 under one roof. In a house with so many men living together, there was apt to be keen and noisy discussion about politics and about socialism, and if the landlord occasionally had to hush up a group, what more natural than to start accusing him

Directors of Nashwauk's MFAHS in 1949. In front: Enoch A. Beckman, vice
secretary and archivist, Charles Latvala, chairman, Fred Törmä, vice
chairman. In back: Vienna Borg, secretary, Jalmar Levola, treasurer,
Hilma Törmä, membership secretary.

of being a reactionary bourgeois and then to start thinking that as a bourgeois he was profiteering at his borders' expense? This led, in 1908, to a group of young men - Peter Huttunen, Matti Mulari, and John Ruoho (all from Iisalmi in Finland) and Fred Törmä (from Parkano) - starting a cooperative eating house. It did not last more than a few months, but it did inspire a larger group - the preceding plus David Korhonen, Kalle Salo, August Mankinen, Kusti Aira, Mikko Mukari, Kalle Mankinen and Jalmari Laakso - to start an even more ambitious venture, a cooperative boarding house which they named the Elanto. They hired a

611