| The shipyards of Duluth
and Superior, Duluth’s U.S. Steel plant, coal docks, a cement
plant, ore docks and grain elevators were key components of America’s
war effort – and all depended on Minnesota Power to keep them
running. The company added a 25,000-kilowatt generating plant to its
capacity in 1943 at the Duluth Steam Electric Station. This
increased demand on the utility came even as the war effort
restricted its ability to find steel for transmission towers and
copper for wire.
The nation’s power plants were
considered a prime target for wartime sabotage, and Minnesota Power
formed a special security unit even before the United States entered
the war. Fortunately, the utility was never subjected to sabotage
attacks.
The company also supported the war
effort in many other ways. Its monthly magazine for employees,
Contact, printed many articles in support of national defense and
the role those Minnesota Power employees were playing in the war
effort. Secretaries at the company’s Duluth
headquarters spent two nights a week instructing air raid wardens in
first aid. The company also formed classes in which female employees
and other local residents learned how to make bandages and do home
canning to cope with wartime shortages.  |
