to give up after some three months of trying. He left some of his tools in one of the pits, thinking that he would return one day and continue digging until he actually found an iron lode. In addition to these tries on the land he had bought, he also looked about in Klondike, with his magnetic needle, and also in Section 6, in Norway Township, south of Lake Reno. In 1887 Pajari returned to Deerwood and tried again, but still in vain.

"Years passed, and fate decreed that it should be Cuyler Adams and not Henry Pajari who would find the Cuyuna Range. Actually, it was not fate, or chance, which kept Pajari from making the discovery, but merely the lack of capital, for all the layers of ore in the Cuyuna Range were buried at a depth of 60 to 80 feet."

Crosby

The town, named at the turn of the century for George H. Crosby, had no Finns until mining operations were begun, at which point many of them did arrive on the scene. Up through the first World War the demand for labor remained brisk, but after that, with the introduction of heavy machinery and the changeover from closed mines to open pits, the demand began to decrease steadily. Nevertheless, in 1950 there were still 104 Finns in Crosby, out of a population of 2,777. Many of the Finns have long since been living on their pensions, having spent their working years in the deep mines, not without some risk.

Minnesota's worst mining disaster took place here on 5 February 1924 at the Ida May mine, owned by the White Marsh Mining Company, some four miles north of Crosby, dug into a ridge between two lakes. There were two tunnels, one at a depth of 125 feet, the other at 200 feet. This deeper one also had a shorter branch tunnel, rich with ore, extending out under the lake. For several days water and mud had been slowly oozing into this branch tunnel, and 42 men were at work on this lower level when the end of the branch tunnel suddenly caved in and the whole tunnel was filled with water in a flash. One man, Eemeli Kainu, manning the shaft pump, was the only one to escape. Holding on to the stairs, he saw rocks, mine props and men hurled past him with the rush of 4,000,000 cubic feet of water. Huge pumps had to be used to empty the whole lake, pouring water into the other lake across the ridge, but it was nine months before the last body had been recovered. Among the victims were 8 Finns: Emil Carlson, Johan Hendrickson, William Johnson, Alex Jylhä, Victor Ketola, Arvid Lehti, Henry Mäki and Henry Palomäki.

In a mining town like this, religion was not the first concern of the Finns : on the contrary, their first organization here was a local branch of the Socialist party, established in 1911. Within a year there were 70 members (61 of them men) and the erection of a workers' hall was begun. Before the building was

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