| In January 1943 more than
3,000 boys and girls in the county were organized into a Junior Red
Cross unit. Also that month members of the First Church of Christ
formed the Christian Science War Relief Committee to gather clothing
and bedding for use in the war effort.
The county USO collected magazines,
cards and other materials in 1943 to provide to Minnesota National
Guard personnel quarantined at Jay Cooke State Park. The Cloquet
schools took part in scrap drives that year along with efforts to
collect books for soliders overseas.
County residents were active several
times during the war in war bond drives. The county USO worked in
1943 to paint and renovate the USO lounge in the recreation building
at the National Guard base at Jay Cooke Park.
Lake County
The county played a major home-front
role in both world wars in the ways other communities did, but also
had an importance because of the docks that carried iron ore crucial
to the war effort from Iron Range mines to steel plants elsewhere.
The tugboat Edna G, a fixture in Two
Harbors, was used for two years during World War I as it moved to
Norfolk, Va., as part of the war effort.
In 1942, the widespread concerns
about enemy sabotage and attacks on the ore docks led to creation of
a civil defense organization in Two Harbors.
Lights on the city's ore docks were
turned off at night out of concern for possible enemy attacks. And
like other cities with installations that were key to the war
effort, Two Harbors created air raid wardens to keep watch during
the war.
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