- Here in Minnesota, we love to eat.

That's probably why we keep inventing new things to put in our mouths.

Spam.

The Bundt cake.

The salted nut roll.

Packaged cake mix.

Hot dish.

Can I sound anymore Minnesota than that?

All invented here in the state of eating.

But what is Minnesota's greatest astronomical achievement ever?

I mean, it's gotta be the pizza roll, right?

Welcome to Minnesota Historia, I'm Hailey, your guide to inventing pizza rolls.

I found out that pizza rolls came out of Duluth, and I've not been able to shut up about it since.

This is Bea Ojakangas, pizza roll inventor, cookbook author, and awkwardly my personal hero.

I'm so star-struck right now, but this is like rock star status.

Every kid from latch key kids on, has come home from school and made pizza rolls for themselves.

So, this is pretty cool.

- That's fun.

That is so funny.

To me, it was a job.

- In the 1960s, she worked for food mogul, Jeno Paulucci.

You'll be hearing his name a lot today.

At one point in a restaurant, I was telling my family and my partner that pizza rolls were invented in Duluth, and they didn't believe me and it was kinda like shouting match.

And we pulled open the Wikipedia page and notably your name is absent.

- 'Cause they got it wrong.

In fact, they gave the credit to Jeno, because he hired me.

- Look, my new best friend, Bea Ojakangas, doesn't need your validation, Wikipedia, she's authored more than 30 cookbooks and she's had her own TV shows.

And she hung out with Julie Childs.

But she also worked in research and development for Jeno Paulucci.

In 1946, Jeno founded Chun King, canned Chinese food with just a little bit of Italian spice in it.

Some people loved it.

- Chun King!

- He later expanded into frozen foods with TV dinners and egg rolls.

- When you're in the food business, you just keep looking for new stuff all the time.

- In 1966, he sold Chun King to RJ Reynolds, but he kept the machines that made the rolls.

- And he said he'd like to get some new ideas for what you can do with the egg rolls.

So, that was the assignment I got, I came up with about 55 different fillings.

Macaroni and cheese, and Reuben and hamburger and cheese and peanut butter and jelly roll, all the different flavors that people liked at the time.

And about five or six of them were pizza flavored, pepperoni pizza and sausage pizza, and bunch of different pizza flavors.

- Bea presented her 55 flavorful filling findings to Jeno Paulucci.

- His pilot picked me up, we flew to Kabetogama, the Lake up north where he had this gorgeous home.

So, I go in and I put my whites on, and get into the kitchen and heated up the egg rolls, and sent them out to this room where this was this great big mahogany table with all of his officials sitting around tasting all these things.

And when the pizza flavored ones came out, he got all excited, he said, pizza rolls, Jeno's Pizza Rolls!

That's it.

And so, that was where it started.

- It's like a whole infinite reality has spawned in front of me, all the different paths that could've happened and all of the different things that could've been selected, could've been picked by Jeno.

Back in this timeline, the pizza roll timeline, we're going to taste test two leading pizza roll brands with Bea Ojakangas.

Spoiler alert, Jeno's is not one of them.

More on that later.

- Lets heat the pizza rolls.

- Okay.

- The directions say to heat the oven to 450 degrees and then we bake them for 12 minutes.

- Okay, okay.

- So, here we go.

- And then I have.

- That's a new invention.

- Yeah.

I have celiac disease, not because I chose to, but I'm also a vegetarian, just the most annoying person to go out to eat with.

- Well, that's always fun.

Okay, so we'll open these up, and then we'll arrange them on the tray here separate.

I think most people, we just go dump, and then not do them one at a time.

So, we'll arrange them on here.

So, oh yours are all nice and even.

- Am I doing it right or?

- Absolutely.

And there's no right or wrong.

So, let's put them in the oven, okay?

- Excellent, it's a plan.

- 12 minutes.

- And then the new ones.

And you've got to set the timer.

- Oh yes, so.

I only have 12 minutes to tell you this.

Pizza rolls were immediately a big hit.

Let's go back to Bea for a lesson in capitalism.

- They were running their machinery day and night and couldn't keep up with the demand, everybody wanted them.

None of us really profited anything from them.

I was getting, being paid minimum wage, which was, I don't know if it was something like couple bucks an hour, and I asked for a 25 cents an hour raise, and they said, oh, sorry, we can't afford that.

(laughs) - You know, in hindsight, maybe I think they probably could've afforded an extra 25 cents for you.

- They probably could've.

Yeah, and I think he sold the pizza roll to Totino's for $125 million or, if you look it up on Wikipedia, I think you'd find it out there.

- Oh, I did.

The sale was actually for $135 million in 1985.

(timer ringing) Okay, so.

- All right.

I can smell 'em.

- It rang, we can smell them.

- Yeah.

- That must mean something.

- Ooh, here they are.

Ooh, boy.

These are your special ones that are gluten-free.

- Woo-hoo.

- And these are the regular ones.

And I notice that they sort of pop out, the filling pops out a little bit.

I don't know if Jeno would be mad about that.

(laughs) - I won't tell him if you don't.

Jeno Paulucci died on November 24th, 2011.

Mineesota Historia regrets the cruel joke that is human mortality.

I'm assuming you were tasting products as you were coming up with your list of 55 different ingredients.

Did you eat a ton of pizza rolls right early on?

- I just tasted the fillings and well, in the very beginning, yeah, we tasted them, we served them.

But I haven't tasted one for 50 years.

- Oh, wow.

Okay.

So, we'll have to see if these live up to the memory, if they've gotten better or worse, I'm very curious to hear your review.

- Well, I think they're so hot that I'll probably burn my tongue.

- Yeah, a little pizza explosion right now.

While we wait for the lava hot pizza rolls to cool, let's ask Bea if she thinks pizza rolls will be her legacy.

- No.

No.

I think it's a way to get to know little kids.

I have a daughter who's a teacher and so she'll talk to the kids and say, you know my mom invented pizza rolls?

What?

And that is the biggest thing they talk about, 'cause they love 'em and think oh my gosh, well, yeah that's okay, but no, it's not my legacy, it's just something that I did as a job.

- Right, not your passion?

- No, no, not really.

Wanna eat one?

- I think we should try.

I'll follow your lead.

- I'll grab one.

It's not too hot anymore.

Hm, tastes like a topping on spaghetti.

- A marinara situation?

- They're okay.

I think they're, the crust is a little tough.

- It's been so long since I've had a real pizza roll, but in my head, these are just as good if not better, but curious to know what you think.

- I think this is probably more tender.

- On a scale from 0-10, is that like a four?

- Yeah, it could probably be a little higher than that.

Five.

- Five?

- Yeah, five.

'Cause the filling is kinda good flavor, I just sucked the filling out.

(laughs) They have tougher skins than I remember.

The crust were wanton skins, but I don't think they do wanton skins anymore.

Actually, I think this one is pretty good.

Yeah.

- Well, there you have it, the gluten-free pizza rolls are not totally disgusting, which I count as a win for the gluten intolerant everywhere.

(upbeat music) Thank you for watching Minnesota Historia.

We've got more terrific tales coming up faster than you can say 212,000 tons of tater tot hot dish.

I'm standing in front of a map that shows all the states involved in the Civil War.

You've got Georgia down here and Virginia up here, and even Pennsylvania where the Battle of Gettysburg took place.

But those weren't the only states involved, look up here at this tiny map.

That's Minnesota, and I'm about to fire so much Minnesota Civil War history at your face, Fran McNally is gonna have to make a whole new map.

Welcome to Minnesota Historia.

I'm Hailey, your guide to Minnesota in The Civil War.

The Civil War came at a really awkward time for Minnesota.

We literally had just become a state on May 11, 1858, and then two years and seven months later, South Carolina secedes from the Union.

Imagine arriving at a party and half the guests immediately leave.

Was it something I said?

Did I mention I brought enough tater tot hot dish to share?

Alabama?

Mississippi?

It's no wonder Minnesota fell all over itself offering the very first soldiers in the Union Army.

If you're wondering how did that even happen, don't worry, we've got Civil War reenactor, Jason Grimm, here to explain everything.

- It just so happened to be that our governor was in Washington DC when Fort Sumpter was fired upon, and at that time, you could practically walk into the White House without an appointment.

So, they walked into the Secretary of War's office and said, I'm gonna commit a thousand men to the defense of this nation.

- Officially, that made the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment the first.

- Imagine then having to wire back to the state saying, hey I just committed a thousand men, can you start the recruitment efforts back home?

- This was not a problem for the Minnesota First.

Volunteers lined up and signed up here at Fort Snelling.

- Company.

Ready.

- [Hailey] Oh, look, we've got archival video of the enlistment from 1861.

I hope you did not believe me.

This footage is actually from 1993, but look at how old it looks.

This wasn't even Fort Snelling's first brush with Civil War history.

30 years earlier in the 1830's, the Army thought that it was okay for soldiers to bring people that they'd enslaved with them to the fort, including Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who couldn't help but notice that Minnesota, the very place that they were living, was a free territory.

The Scott's sued for their freedom, and the Supreme Court and its infinite wisdom, sided with slavery.

What is it with this court?

This decision enraged half the country and led pretty directly to the Civil War and the aforementioned First Minnesota Infantry Regiment.

In addition to having the first volunteer soldiers, Minnesota also had the last.

(group singing) - Here we are commemorating the death of the last member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Albert Wilson.

- To be clear, this didn't just happen.

Albert Wilson died on August 2nd, 1956, at the age of 106.

He was the last surviving Civil War Veteran.

So, people are still making a big deal out of it, including his ancestors, some of his fans, and the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, he's on a cell phone, but he's also 100% here for Albert Wilson.

- He was the last Civil War veteran from either side, north or south, to pass away.

- I was also sorry to hear about your passing, Mr. President.

- Well, thank you.

Yes, it was a real headache for me.

- In 1864, Albert Wilson enlisted as a drummer boy in a heavy artillery regiment.

Garrison in Chattanooga, Tennessee, his regiment saw no actual combat.

But that didn't stop these Civil War reenactors from showing up at this memorial service and firing a cannon ball into some trees.

- The cannon that's behind me is a little cannon, that's called light artillery, so what Albert Wilson was used to seeing is much bigger, far bigger cannons.

- Are we safe to stand here while they're shooting, or do we need to be back further?

- We should be.

We're safe.

(drumming) (cannon blasts) - After serving for almost a year, Albert Wilson was discharged and returned to Minnesota where he found work as a musician, a mechanical engineer, a teacher, and singing in a mistral show where he wore blackface.

Why does history always have to be so messy?

- It is, all of our past is a complicated story.

- Wilson spent the second half of his crazy long life in Duluth, Minnesota, where they still celebrate him today.

And not just at his grave site, at the St. Louis County Depot, you can read all about him in Veteran's Memorial Hall.

And there's a big ol statue of him out front.

Some people say if you sit on Albert Wilson's lap while singing battle hymn of the republic, you can make a wish.

Just make it something that could reasonably be accomplished by the Grand Army of the Republic, like laying waste to Atlanta.

- All right, cool.

- I've got time for two more stories.

One that I hate and one that I love.

If you look up where is the nearest Civil War battlefield to me, oh, hi, by the way, I'm in Minnesota, you might be surprised to see sites right here in our own state.

You don't have to go to Illinois or Missouri to get your battlefield on, because Minnesota started a whole other Civil War right here in its own backyard.

About a decade before the Civil War started, Minnesota's territorial governor, Alexander Ramsey, began a systematic campaign to get rid of every Dakota still living in the territory.

If that sounds like the classic definition of a genocide to you, I would not argue that point.

First, Ramsey pushed the Dakota onto a tiny reservation along the Minnesota River.

Then, he was held promised payments and food rations to starve them to death.

You will not be shocked to learn that the Dakota fought back.

Tensioned boiled over in Acton, Minnesota, where a Dakota hunting party killed five people.

After that, the Dakota tried to target people who'd wronged them.

That distinction was not always clear to anybody.

Ramsey saw the attacks as an opportunity, telling the state legislator that the Dakota "must be exterminated "or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."

So, Minnesota did both.

The war lasted just six weeks, after which a military commission hanged 38 Dakota.

The largest mass execution in American history, right here in Downtown Mankato.

Oh, and guess who was there that day, young Albert Wilson.

He was just 13 years old, maybe his parents brought him.

The Dakota genocide is arguably the worst thing Minnesota has ever done.

Obviously, that was the story I hate.

But there is one last Civil War story that I kinda love.

Remember the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment?

Well, they fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863.

They fought in all the famous battles.

- The First Minnesota, again, finds itself right in the heaviest of fighting, and the 28th Virginia was one of the Confederate Regiments that charged across an open field, mile long charge over open, just taking shots from cannons.

(cannon blasts) And the First Minnesota is able to grab the 28th Virginia flag and capture it.

- Yeah, General Hancock pointed at the line of Confederates, and said to the Colonel, Colonel, do you see those colors?

Then take them.

And they did.

- Look, Army's used to care a lot more about winning flags.

Flag were used to guide soldiers and show progress.

Of course, we've moved beyond caring about trivial things like flags.

- Of course the State of Virginia would like it back.

- What do you mean, Virginia wants its flag back?

Like, today?

In 1905, Congress demanded that all battle flags be returned to their states of origin.

Minnesota hilariously pretended the flag was lost.

- Rumor has it is that the flag of the 28th Virginia was never inventoried in the federal system, so that's why the State of Minnesota can hold onto it.

- Then Virginia started using words, like heritage and tradition.

They asked for it in 1961, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2013, probably last week, and maybe tomorrow at noon.

They tried to sue Minnesota.

(gavel pounding) Then they tried to request it real casually through an intermuseum loan.

Minnesota refused every time.

Nice try, Virginia.

My favorite rejection came from former Governor, and current action figure, Jesse Ventura, who said at various times, why, I mean, we won.

And also, we took it, that makes it our heritage.

But what does Civil War reenactor's think about this?

- Don't give it up, keep it.

Yeah, it was captured during an engagement and should be, it's where it should be.

- Keep it in Minnesota.

That's my personal feeling.

- Yeah, we won 'em fair.

- It shouldn't be a brag, there's nothing to brag about, there's a lot of loss of life around that flag.

But at the same time, that brotherhood of those Union veterans that came back, that survived that battle, I think having that in place as a memory of their sacrifices and what that cost to bring this country back together, I think it can stay here.

- Today, the flag is cared for by the Minnesota Historical Society, where they keep it safe, deep inside their fortress-like building.

And that's what I love about this story.

If we as a state can keep one more Confederate flag off the streets, I mean, good job, Minnesota.

(upbeat music) Thank you for watching Minnesota Historia.

We've got more award-winning endutainment coming up faster than you can say duck, duck, gray duck.

Imagine opening the Pine City Pioneer on the morning of October 20th 2021, and reading the headline, "This Sunken Circus Train Full of Gold Business "Has Gone Too Dang Far".

Gentleman, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

According to local legend, a train derailed from these tracks in Pine City, Minnesota in the 1800's, plummeting down a steep hill into Devil's Lake and disappearing forever from history.

Except there's no evidence that this ever happened.

No train reported missing.

No people reported missing.

No newspaper accounts at all from the time.

And yet, the legend persists that evolves, it adds circus animals for some reason.

This isn't so much the story of a train wreck, it's more of a train wreck of a story.

Welcome to Minnesota Historia, I'm Hailey, your guide to the lost train of Pine City.

This is former newspaper editor, Mike Gainor.

He wrote what I consider to be the best headline in the history of all printed media.

- "This sunken circus train full of gold business "has gone too dang far".

So, here we are, we are on the railroad tracks coming from the south to the north, and behind me is Devil's Lake.

It's a very deep, a very muddy lake, supposedly it's about 80 feet deep.

It's very difficult to find the bottom and of course, that's one of the things that has added to this legend over time.

Which is, would you like me to get into it?

- My goodness, yes, get into it.

- So, it was a dark and rainy night in 18 blankety blank, when a train came rumbling down this track.

A circus train possibly filled with gold.

No, I can't do that, I can't, I'm sorry.

- Mike is understandably reluctant to give this story anymore attention.

- It sounds great, it sounds like a wonderful story, but in my opinion at least, there's absolutely nothing to it.

- Of course there's plenty of real history we could be talking about here.

Pine City is more than just a lost circus train full of gold.

- It is, believe it or not, it is.

It's much more.

I'm Jan Ashmore at the Pine County Historical Society Museum and Event Center in Askov, Minnesota.

- [Hailey] Just up the road from Pine City.

But they have exhibits for all the towns in Pine County here.

- The museum is full of history from Pine County.

There's just so much, there's a logging room, there's a textile room, there's a military room.

- [Hailey] There's a doll room, there's a wooden car, there's a replica of the Little Mermaid statue.

And yet, all I came to talk about was this phony bologna circus train.

- I honestly have never heard of that.

I don't know how accurate it is.

- Oh, it's not accurate at all, but how did we even get here?

Why am I bothering poor Jan with this?

- It's hard to know how a story like this gets started.

There are newspaper reports back from the 1800's saying that there were problems with the tracks, that the tracks were slipping.

And in fact, there's a newspaper story saying that they should have someone standing out on the tracks, in order to keep anything from happening.

So, I believe this was about 1889 when that story was published.

- That's evocative, but hardly enough to launch an entire urban legend.

- But there is a lady who did some research back in the day who said that she'd talked to somebody who'd heard from their grandparents that a whistle was heard from a train.

(blowing whistle) And then the train was never seen.

- Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

- It's classic storytelling, right?

Pull together some threads, all of a sudden somebody says, maybe that train went into Devil's Lake.

And then somebody else says, the train went into Devil's Lake?

And away you go.

- Oh, people went, crazy, that is, with theories about this train.

- One of the theories is that it happened back in the 1870's before there was a newspaper here.

But once again, let's go back to that story from 1889 where they're talking about the condition of the tracks, so why don't they say we need to avoid something bad from happening here again, like what happened on the horrible events of this night back in the 1870's.

So, why isn't that information there?

Then you get into the next level of the conspiracy, which is well, of course, they didn't put it in the record because they were hiding it.

- It's like we've got a whole circus train full of tinfoil hat-wearing truthers here.

- There's been a number of people who've searched for the train in Devil's Lake, they've found nothing.

- Go on.

- Back in the 2010, I had just come to the newspaper, but then I heard there was the team and they were out there diving, and so I took a couple of pictures of the team diving in the lake.

And shockingly, they were unable to find anything, because yeah.

And then there was a number of years later, a team of folks came out from Grantsburg.

Great folks.

So they decided we're gonna do it in a different way, we're gonna go out in the winter with a magnetometer, and we're gonna walk around on the surface of the lake and try to do sort of a survey of the bottom of the lake to try to find if there's a possible train down there.

But the last I heard was that they had just given up on the search.

- Well, all right then.

Seems like that should be the end of it.

Right, Mike?

(Mike sighs) - I became aware back in 2020 that there had been some changes to the Wikipedia page for Pine County, and in fact, some additions to the tale.

It was not just a train now, and it was not just a circus train because those rumors had been around for awhile but now it was circus train full of Confederate gold being transported to Canada.

- The Confederate angle is new and weird.

- I did a little research, figured out that it was somebody had done this from their phone, so it seemed to me that just somebody was having a good time.

- Okay, fine, a good time was had, but surely this must be the end of it, right?

Right?

- But then I was, I came across this, I'm a member of the Pine County Historical Society, a proud member.

I think they do great work.

And they were sending out the October 2021 edition, and they had a thing in here on page two, an article on the lost train of Pine County.

And I immediately thought, oh no.

- It starts with a quick recap of the stuff we already know.

But then.

- Other theories suggest that a circus train.

- Circus, that's the only thing in quotes.

- Filled with Confederate gold was being shipping to Canada to help with the continued insurrection against the North.

In this theory, the unruly animas caused the derailment.

- Was not expecting a circus animal mutiny.

Meanwhile, back at the museum.

- I didn't know this was gonna be a quiz.

- Jan does not know who wrote the article.

- That's interesting.

Well, somebody has heard of this, I don't know who wrote it because there's no name by it.

- I felt bad springing this on her.

To be fair, this is Jan's first month writing the newsletter.

- I've been volunteering for awhile for different events, but I just became involved with doing all the socials, just like July.

- Circus animal mutiny, just a simple mistake from an unnamed volunteer at a delightful county museum.

- In every region, there's fun stories like that that's gonna be talked about, it's gonna be mentioned.

But that's definitely not the priority is to fill your head full of folklore that's not true.

Our priority is not the folklore of it, the priority is to really have people come in and engage with actual history.

- And that definitely is 100% the absolute end of this urban legend.

- People are talking about Bigfoot pushing the train into Devil's Lake.

I just am talking about, I'm just asking questions here.

- Mike, be serious.

- This is the kinda quandary that gives editors existential crisis and gray hairs.

Someone could use the article that I wrote as evidence that there might be more to this story, that this might be going on, and I'm very nervous about this very documentary that now somebody's going to say, did you hear that there's a train filled with gold that no one has found in the bottom of this tiny mysterious lake in Pine County?

There is no train, don't waste your time, and please let's nobody get hurt doing this.

- Too serious, Mike.

But the question remains, why won't this story go away?

- Don't we all want there to be something in the bottom of that lake?

This is just part of who we are, this is like human nature.

We want the story to be bigger than life, and I get that, part of me wants it to be true.

I would be delighted to be proved wrong, but I'm not.

(laughs) (upbeat music) - Thank you for watching Minnesota Historia.

We've got more quirky stories coming up faster than you can say bing bong in a whipperino.

Whatever that means.

(video game music) Oh, hello there, I almost didn't see you, I was so busy laying down world record scores.

If you've ever played Donkey Kong, you know how difficult it can be to jump onto an elevator without plummeting to your death.

This used to happen in the real world too.

For years, elevator shafts, were like our top natural predator, always hungry, jaws opened wide, awaiting human sacrifice.

Then, an inventor named, Alexander Miles, made elevators safer with automatic doors.

If life were like a video game, you might say, he gave us all extra lives.

Welcome to Minnesota Historia.

I'm Hailey, your guide to Alexander Miles, Minnesota's Elevator Action Man.

So, guess how many black people lived in Minnesota Territory in 1850?

It was 39.

Not 39,000 or 3900, just 39.

Journalist and historian, Robin Washington, has theories.

- I have an easy answer for why in 1850, a whole lot of black people weren't coming to Minnesota, it's called Dred Scott.

Dred Scott and his wife were in Minnesota.

- They lived here at Fort Snelling.

- And they were brought here as enslaved people and went back to Missouri, and people told 'em, did you know you were free while you were in Minnesota?

That got to be, as we very well know, a Supreme Court case that was one of the worst decisions in American history.

- Their 1857 decision upheld slavery and denied the citizenship of enslaved Americans.

- So, there's no way any black person was looking at a map and trying to figure out where to go, would say, oh, Minnesota sounds like a great place right after Dred Scott.

- By 1865, the population had boomed to 259.

Fortunately, that number included the subject of this episode.

Alexander Miles was born in Pickaway County, Ohio, in 1832, possibly in Circleville.

As an adult, he moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin, and worked as a barber.

But things didn't really get cooking for miles until he got to Winona, Minnesota, in 1862.

Today, Winona is still a pretty little river city on the banks of the Mississippi River.

In 1864, Miles purchased the OK Barbershop located approximately where this brutalist architecture now stands.

There, he started selling his first invention, Tunisian hair dressing.

Miles got married in 1871, which received some negative attention in the Winona Herald.

Maybe you can guess why.

According to a gossipy column in The Herald, Alexander Miles "lived with a white woman and put on style".

Oh, look, racism in this country.

Without any context whatsoever, The Herald also accused him of trying to swindle somebody, like a fashionable, radical office-holder.

Feels like maybe it's time to leave Winona.

(train rolling down tracks) Duluth.

- Well, Alexander Miles came here at a time when a lot of people came here.

Duluth was growing from a population about 2000 people to 50,000 in 10, 15 years, or something.

- In 1875, Alexander Miles opened a new barbershop in Duluth St. Louis Hotel.

- We are standing out front of the Providence building, in Downtown Duluth, which is the site of the former St. Louis Hotel, which is a location where Alexander Miles had his barbershop.

- It was said to be the nicest in town.

He used his earnings to invest in real estate.

- He was fortunate enough to show up after the panic of 1873 when property values were low.

- And so, he was able to acquire land for nothing, and then Duluth boomed again and all of sudden, there was value in all this land that he owned.

- This is Blake Romenesko, he's the president of the Duluth Preservation Alliance and he's also a bit of an expert on Alexander Miles for a very cool reason.

- We're standing in my home right now, one of eight rental houses built by Alexander Miles.

- As a real estate developer, Miles started with a three story office building in Downtown Duluth.

- We are standing at the site of the Miles Block, named for Alexander Miles, which he developed beginning in 1883.

It was a grand building.

If you look, the other buildings down this street are, well maybe not equally opulent but opulent, and so this really, this was where it happened, this is where he wheeled and dealed.

- The Miles Block is no longer there, but six of the houses he built still remain.

- Kinda this whole part of the block in the 1880's, was kind of like his little estate.

So, kinda like where my kitchen is, he had house there, and then he had a stable and another building that's there.

And then in 1892, he divided the lot into this housing development, so this was a rental house.

It was smaller but it was meant for a middle-class family.

So, we got a fireplace, we have electricity, it has pocket doors, which doesn't really work anymore, the floor is kind bowed up, but it's still there, I still have 'em.

I knew the history of these houses and I was home with the flu and I was looking for Zillow for fun, and like, oh, someone should buy that house 'cause whoever buys it is not going to take care of it.

With my flu brain, I was like, I should do it.

Oh, I should show you, you can stay there, I'll show you.

- Blake is the kind of person who cares so much about history, he will rush off camera during an interview and ransack his entire house just to show you an original Victorian drawer pull.

- So here is one of the original drawer pulls from the kitchen, so it matches the hardware on the pocket door as well.

So, I'm in like a Victorian Homeowners group, where I just post lots and lots of questions, and people are like, oh, it's got a name, this style, which I forget what it is, and then there's a company that makes replicas that are really really expensive.

It's like 90 bucks for one of these.

- [Hailey] But of all the Victorian homes in Duluth, why this one?

- I love history and like many people, how it represents people's history of the United States, was influential on me, and so telling these underrepresented stories of people of color, I think is incredibly important.

- Which finally brings us to the story I like to call, Alexander Miles Versus The Terror of the Open Elevator Shaft.

Elevating platforms have been around since the Roman Empire, but modern elevators with basic safety features didn't arrive until the 1850's.

And when I say basic safety features, I mean a floor and a ceiling and brakes, but the doors were often left to chance.

- Back in the 1880's, it was the cage so you'd have a quarter, it would take you up and down and open the cage for you.

- Elevator operators had to do this manually, which was a very flawed system.

They left so many doors wide open.

Always hungry for human flesh.

- It was a safety problem, people were falling down elevator shafts.

It actually did happen, people died.

It may or may not be true that he worried about his daughter falling down the shaft.

I would've been concerned that my little girl would perhaps fall down.

- So, the hero of our story invented elevator doors that could open and close automatically.

These doors are smarter than people thanks to a flexible belt that hits drums located above and below each floor.

Look, I don't understand his patent either, I just know elevator shafts have ceased their quenchless thirst for blood.

And we have Alexander Miles to thank for all those lives saved.

- 1880's was kind of, he was on top of the world and was grabbing people's attention.

- This guy was the richest black man in the Old Northwest.

He would've been one of the richer people in Duluth.

- So, people were cool with him?

- He's definitely being accepted in the community.

- [Blake] So, he was on the Chamber of Commerce.

- He's also serving on juries.

That's significant.

How many African-Americans served on juries at the time?

- He was also part of a fraternal organization of black men and he was active Republican, the Party of Lincoln.

- I'm not saying race didn't matter, I'm not saying nobody noticed, but it did not appear to be an impediment.

- Look, Miles had a good run here in Duluth.

- But unfortunately, he was affected like everybody else was, by the Panic of 1893.

- He wasn't able to financially keep up in the houses, so they were foreclosed on later on in the decade.

- He was broke.

So, he moved to Chicago where he revolutionized the life insurance business.

Is that true?

- Was a part of starting a fraternal life insurance company for African-Americans, which was a first in the country at the time.

- Because white-owned insurance companies would not insure African-Americans at the time, there was an excuse that black people had shorter life expectancy, Alexander Miles and another gentleman went out and did a study to dispel that.

And okay, we'll do it ourselves.

- In 2007, Alexander Miles was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

You'll find him listed right above Hinda Miller, one of the inventors of the sports bra.

- So, he was an inspiring character, he had this drive, this inventiveness, it almost sounds trite to say but a real can-do attitude, and you can see that in the things he did.

(upbeat music) - Thank you for watching Minnesota Historia.

We've got more epic tales of love and loss coming up faster than you can say, circle train full of Confederate gold.

Ah well ah, everybody's heard about the bird, buh buh buh bird bird bird, buh bird is the word, are they opening lyrics of "Surfin' Bird," a top 10 hit by the Trashmen, a surf rock band out of Minneapolis.

But why does Minnesota even have surf rock and why did the state's next great surf rock band come from the Iron Range?

Welcome to Minnesota Historia, I'm Hailey, your guide to surf rock on the Iron Range.

This is Virginia, Minnesota, the second largest city on Minnesota's historic Iron Range.

It's known for iron mining, saw milling, and the world's largest floating loon.

But the one thing Virginia, Minnesota, is most definitely not known for is surfing.

It's a thousand miles to the nearest ocean.

60 miles to the nearest large body of water.

And yes, Lake Superior does have some monster waves, but Northern Minnesota's surfers are an unconventional group of athletes to say the least.

So how did the Vaqueros from this quirky little town on the Iron Range, turn out a boss surf rock single like "80 Foot Wave?"

We went to Rick Olson for the answer.

He's a collector of many things.

Monsters, dinosaurs, and the music of an adolescent spent on the Iron Range.

- Well, what I have is a nice little rhythm tote for carrying the records.

But anyways, inside this record case, are all records from the Iron Range.

- Growing up on the range, Rick knew all about the Vaqueros and the Electras and the Renowns.

- And Little John and the Sherwin Men were out of Hibbing.

- Because he was involved in the local music scene in a very unusual way.

- So, my family owned a gas station, they started in Virginia in 1950, it was Dick's Conoco Service.

We had local trailer rental in Virginia, nobody else did that.

We got a lot of business from local bands that way.

There were a lot of bands, every community had a lot of bands.

That was a 4x7, four feet by seven feet long, this would've been rented by the bands, garage bands, if they needed a trailer for the big amplifiers and everything and the drum kits and that.

Well, that's a little big, let's say that's a standup bass.

Bands used them.

So, it was really easy to come to a local rental place and rent a trailer, but that's just a model of it.

- And that's how young Rick helped local bands, like the Small Society and Tomorrow's Children.

Honestly, I could drop these wild Iron Range band names all day, but we are here to talk about the Vaqueros.

The band began when drummer, Rudy Spolar Jr, met guitarist, Terry Schmidt, in 1962.

Pete Deyoung, Linda Anderson, and Dean Frazee, filled out the roster.

Rudy and Terry loved surf rock.

It was an exciting new kind of instrumental music from bands like Dickdale, The Ventures, and The Fireballs.

- In fact, the name, Vaquero, is I think they got that from the band, The Fireballs, there was a song, Vaquero.

- Vaquero is a Spanish word, of course meaning cowboy, or cattle driver.

Fun cowboy fact; the word "buckaroo" is actually a mishearing of the word, "Vaquero."

Dickdale developed the surf rock sound in Southern California, by combining Mexican and Middle Eastern influences with tremolo picking and a twangy reverb.

Soon, there were surf rock bands all over the country, including the Trashmen, who recorded their hit, "Surfin' Bird", at Kay Banks Studios in Minneapolis, which is also where the Vaqueros recorded.

- Now, not everybody got a record, but Vaqueros got a record.

- It was called, "80 Foot Wave."

I don't have a rhythm tote, I don't have 80 foot wave either.

That's a collectors item now.

It's spendy.

- I only have one of these, this is the record that we got from the Vaqueros when they came in to rent a trailer for whatever job they were doing that night.

I think that Terry Schmidt mentioned that he had seen Muscle Beach Party with Annette Funicello, and came up with that name.

- At this point, I kinda just wanna hear the song.

- Are you ready?

- Am I ready?

Does the tide rip?

- And so, we will pull out the Vaqueros "80 Foot Wave," and so let's pretend that we're back then and we've got a 1956 record player and we can see if this'll work.

(music starts) (music goes out of tune) Kind of off.

Well, it's dying on me.

- So is this episode.

- It's 1956 and it's old.

It's old like me.

I was really hoping that this would.

- I am actually unsurprised to see that Rick owns multiple record players.

- Let's see if it works.

Yeah, okay.

(upbeat surf rock music) It's good pattern, it's a simple song, it's very simple, it's the key of G. - I have to admit, that is a real slapperoni and cheese.

- Very well written, something that would stay with you.

Sometimes it doesn't have to be that complicated.

"80 Foot Wave" took off, so I happen to have an original WEBC from Duluth and we can see right on here that "80 Foot Wave" for the week ending November 28th, 1964, "80 Foot Wave" by the Vaqueros, last week, it was at number 12.

It's starting to fall now in 22.

- Once upon a time, almost every radio station in America playing the Top 40 songs, had their own Top 40.

- And up the chart it went, so we see "80 Foot Wave" on November 24th, '64.

And this was in Duluth, Minnesota, WEBC.

- So, we've established that it's a banger, but why is it a banger?

- I'm gonna show you what I mean with, I wanna just put this back on here.

You'd think that you would start opening in E, you'd think you would start opening that.

But he's in a G, so he's doing like this, he's going.

(playing guitar) Anyways, like I say, it's a fun song, it's just a really nice song.

That the Vaqueros, what made the Vaqueros great?

Well, I really think that Rudy Spolar Jr was a hell of a good drummer.

I can hear it on the records, I think he was very good.

- But the band had one other secret weapon.

- Rudy Spolar Sr really promoted that band.

- Rudy Sr was a heavy equipment operator for the City of Virginia, but also a concert promoter.

This Iron Range is such a land of contradictions.

- He really wanted them to succeed and play with a lot of people, like Del Shannon and Marquettes, and I'm trying to think of all the bands that came there.

He was promoting and organizing these groups to come to Virginia.

- Aw, he was like their biggest fan.

The Vaqueros recorded six songs at Kay Bank.

- Boy, these records are scratchy.

- [Hailey] And later, released two more singles, which also did well.

- Growing Pains, this is going to be "Don't You Dare," and this was their last recording.

This would've been late '66, November of '66 I think is when they did this one.

- Band members came and went, but drummer, Rudy Spolar Jr, always stayed at the center of The Vaqueros.

- And that's why it was over when he died, because he was The Vaqueros as far as I'm concerned.

- This is the part of our goofy little history show that breaks my heart.

Rudy went to college, Bemidji State University, where he lived in an off-campus dorm.

- He had a loaded pistol, probably looking at it, playing with it.

- There are different stories about what happened next.

Although, every story agrees, it was an accident.

- Carelessness, inattentiveness, whatever, that's how fast it happens, and that's what happened with him.

- It's a sad story, but it still makes me happy that even for a brief period of time, a solidly landlocked, blue collar mining city, like Virginia, Minnesota, could produce a band that bing bonged such a whipperrino.

- That's the beauty of having the vinyls and for them to survive, as a lot of these guys are long gone and the times were gone in that, but you can hear what they did, what their talent was, and that's valuable.

(upbeat music) - Thank you for watching Minnesota Historia.

We've got more wild tales of adventure coming up faster than you can say, The Barren of Sheboygan.

I'm thinking of a famous Broadway musical, named for a great city on a great lake.

It's not Chicago.

Think of noble rank, plus a city, like The Baron of Sheboygan.

Or the Count of Castle Danger.

Or The Emperor of Escanaba.

I could literally do this all day, but it's actually The Duke of Duluth, and no, there is no reason you should've heard of this, but you're gonna.

Welcome to Minnesota Historia, I'm Hailey, your guide to The Duke of Duluth.

Let me take you back to the Great White Way, which is a thing they used to call Broadway because of all the bright lights, and not because Broadway producers and theater owners are so overwhelmingly white.

Welcome to my tiny puppet version of New York's Majestic Theater.

On September 11th in 1905, the Duke of Duluth opened here, after a preview run in some other great lake city that nobody really cares about at all.

It's a musical or an opera, or an operetta, I'm never really sure which is which.

(piano music) - You can sort of generally say that operas are sung throughout with a story from beginning to end.

Operettas also have a story from beginning to end, but they're spoken dialog.

I don't wanna call the Duke of Duluth an operetta or operatic farce, because in this country, we had done away with that term and we were calling our shows musicals by then.

- The Duke of Duluth starred Nat M Wills.

Wills was famous for his funny tramp character.

Wills was a big get for The Duke of Duluth.

Allow me to set the stage.

The Duke of Duluth opened in the City of Duluth where Nat M Wills is sleepy.

So, he wonders down to the docks and takes a nap inside a submarine.

As one does.

That is literally all we get to see of the City of Duluth in The Duke of Duluth.

Maybe the writer, George Broadhurst, just liked the way The Duke of Duluth sounded, I don't know.

Nat M Wills wakes up to find his slumbering submarine has traveled to the land of Watt, a magical fantasy world inhabited mostly by chorus girls.

The people who live there mistake Wills for Duke who arrived to protect their city from an enemy threat.

Then, there was much singing and dancing.

Would you like to hear a number?

(piano music) ♪ I intend to model my life ♪ On a most original plan ♪ To follow the teachings and the preachings ♪ ♪ Of our successful man ♪ To do what I think is right ♪ No matter what others day ♪ To be on the tussle ♪ And keep on hustle ♪ Until I get my own way ♪ To be on the tussle and keep on the hustle ♪ ♪ Until I get my own way - It's hard to tell what he's wearing in this photo for a variety of reasons.

Okay, Cal, so here's some hilarious leggins for you.

- Yes.

- There's a small bathroom through this weird little door here.

(upbeat music) - The dance numbers are not very extensive, so if my shoes are a little loose, right.

- All right, now comes the goofy part.

- Now comes the goofy part.

- What's it like to play a bigger than life character that nobody has heard of?

- That is gonna be the big challenge, but I hope I'm up for it.

- I appreciate your bravery.

♪ And I'll be strenuous ♪ Strenuous ♪ I'll be strenuous and go off on a swim ♪ ♪ And the though sun be hiding ♪ I will do my horseback riding ♪ ♪ Then box 10 hot rounds with someone in between ♪ ♪ Then I'll cook ♪ You'll eat my breakfast ♪ And you'll hunt for a big game ♪ ♪ And of course I grate my big old ♪ ♪ Of wild cats I'll get plenty ♪ And of bears somewhere at 20 ♪ And that without have trying to be strenuous ♪ - I bet you're thinking The Duke of Duluth dazzled the critics.

Let's see what they have to say.

(trumpet whomping) Oh.

According to The Globe, the operatic cream injected into The Duke of Duluth turned sour.

Meanwhile, the world said, Nat Wills, Vaudeville Star, over jumped and landed in a snow bank.

The result is a painful jumble of nonsense.

And to say that The Duke of Duluth is dull and flat, is putting the truth mildly.

Others were meaner.

The plot does not go far in the first act and it never appears in the second.

You do hate to think that 17 verses of every song rank, ranker, or rankest, have been rehearsed.

If the audience had been wax works, and the wax had melted, they would have construed the melting into a call for an encore.

Somebody doodled during the show.

Are you starting to worry about the reviews for this episode of Minnesota Historia?

- Well, I've heard that the original reviews for The Duke of Duluth back over a hundred years ago, were unfavorable at best.

So, I think I have a little hill to climb here.

- Well, he can't please everyone.

I bet it cleaned up at the box office though.

Oh, it closed in two weeks?

Hm.

The Duke of Duluth moved to a slightly smaller venue, Haverly's 14th Street Theater, where it closed after six days.

And then it opened at the American Theater for a couple more weeks.

It had 48 performances in total in New York City.

But what did the fine folks in Duluth, Minnesota, think of the Broadway play that shared their name?

Oh, they loved it.

As the kind of city that's constantly threatening to be the next big thing, Duluth was always opening in theaters.

The Grand Opera House opened in 1883, burned down in 1889.

The Bidju opened in 1903, burned down in 1915.

The Lyceum opened in 1892, and they said it was Duluth's first fireproof theater.

They tore that one down instead.

But not before Nat M Wills brought The Duke of Duluth to Duluth, and it played at the Lyceum on March 7th and 8th, 1906.

Nat M Wills was met at the train station by 1000 delighted Duluthians, they took him to City Hall on a firetruck.

The Mayor gave him a comically oversized key to the city, bigger than this one, it was like five feet long.

Seems like a lot.

The Duluth Evening Herald accused locals of being a little too enthusiastic, but ultimately called it worthwhile.

I'll let you be the judge.

We'll close this episode of Minnesota Historia with another number from The Duke of Duluth.

I believe this is what they call an encore.

(upbeat piano music) ♪ My dainty Dresden shepherdess ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ More than you can guess ♪ Don't turn your pretty head away ♪ ♪ For I'll be torn ♪ My dainty Dresden shepherdess ♪ ♪ Won't you please softly whisper yes ♪ ♪ And if you're only in the day ♪ ♪ I'll love but you - [Hailey] Thanks for watching Minnesota Historia, your guide to all things quirky in Minnesota history.

(cannon blasts) - You turn that handle and lift it up, and all your records were on there.

- Most people, we just go, dump.

(light drumming) - There is no train.

- "80 Foot Wave" took off and up the chart it went.

- Never heard of The Duke of Duluth.

(light upbeat music) - [Hailey] And please, become a member of PBS North, to support projects just like this.