founding members would have found it difficult to imagine a time when 270 automobiles brought the members to vote at an annual meeting, and when the board of directors no longer had a single Finnsh-born member but only second and third generation Finns serving as a majority on it.

Business managers succeeding Herman Louko have been V. S. Komulainen, Anna Mattson, William Bimberg, Matt Hepokoski, Charles Lohi, William Niska, Henry Muuttonen, Arvo Mandelin, J. W. Halmekangas, William Könnö, Henry Koivisto and Arne Wisuri. The business has been expanded cautiously, to include branch stores in Wolf Lake (1929) and Park Rapids (1952), ownership of a grain elevator, a garage and a filling station, a deep-freeze locker plant and fuel oil supply service.20

One can say of Menahga's business men what has been said of those of Sebeka: almost all of them were Finns. One enterprise deserving mention for its uniqueness was the Menahga Health Home, on the shores of Stocking Lake, operated by O. O. Jurva, but it was in banking that the Finns played a prominent role. The first bank in the community, the Bank of Menahga, opened its doors in 1898, and among its first clients appeared the names of several Finns: Leonard Carjala, A. Kallunki, Don Kuusi and Henry Tomperi. After the bank changed its name (to State Bank of Menahga) and its ownership in 1904, there were two Finns on its board of directors, Frank Nelson and Matti Ristinen, and the latter became a vice-president and in 1911 president of the bank. When the bank changed its name again (in 1920, to First National Bank of Menahga) another Finn, Wäinö Järvinen, became its president. Also, the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank has had Finnish presidents, Matti Jacob Hepokoski and J. H. Mattson.

In civic life, there have been Richard Haarala as mayor of Menahga and Leonard Carjala and Matti Ristinen as postmasters. Even the Townsend movement club established in the 1930s seems to have been a Finnish organization. Finally, after Eero A. Pulli addressed a meeting of 51 Finns at the City Hall in 1947, stressing the importance of historical activity, Chapter 12 of the Minnesota Finnish-American Historical Society was founded, with Matti Hepokoski as chairman, Henry Himanga as secretary and Aksel Hepola as treasurer.

20. Forty Years of Community Building with Farmer's Co-op Sampo, Menahga, Minn. Superior, Wisconsin, 1943. Esiraivaajien Muisto, op. cit., p. 26. and Minnesotan Uutiset, 3 December 1953

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