I was raised in Silverdale, a township near the Southwestern corner of Koochiching County, Minnesota. The exact location is 4759'10"N 936'34"W; the elevation is 1,311 feet above sea level. St Louis County is to the East, with Rauch township and Itasca County to the South. Just to the North is the Bois Fort (Nett Lake) Indian Reservation. This area is neither east of the Mississippi or West of the Mississippi, it is north or it. It is North of the Laurentian or Northern Continental Divide. The Rivers flow North, eventually to Hudson's Bay. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Divide)

The Canadian Border lies about 50 miles to the North, The Mesabi Iron Range lies about 50 miles South. To the East is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Voyagers National Park. To the West is a vast nearly uninhabited forested muskeg swamp.

Silverdale  was named for an early settler, Johan Johansson (Johannes) Silverdahl. He was born in Sweden in 1858 and came to Minnesota in 1897. In 1903 he filed for a Homestead in what would become Silverdale. His name may have come from "Silverdalen" (the Silver Valley) in Kalemar (South Central), Sweden). The map below shows where Silverdale is located in Minnesota. Silverdale was a very ethnically diverse area. Our neighbors included Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, Italians, Poles, Slovenians, Georgians, Irish, Native Americans and others

Our post office was in Gheen, Minnesota, 19 miles to the East. Once a thriving logging town where hundreds of thousands of cords of pulpwood were loaded onto rail cars for shipment to paper mills or saw mills in Cloquet or International Falls. Little remains of old Gheen now. The Color photo below, taken in June 2003, is of the former General Store. The Black and White photo was taken in 1937 of another store in Gheen.

As for Silverdale itself today, this is the view from the Silverdale School (the center of the township) looking West toward our farm.

The first picture below shows what is left of Silverdale School. The second shows it as it was when first built. I finished grade school here after the nearly identical Harrigan School burned when I was in about the fifth grade. The school was run as a two room school, grades 1 through 4 in one room, grades 5 through 8 in the other. The teachers lived in the school as did the cook and custodian.

Below is a picture of the remains of a homestead in Silverdale, unfortunately a not uncommon sight. The old farms are now being reclaimed by the forest.

The old Silverdale Farmers Club Hall, now being renovated to some extent.

On the left, the Silverdale Lutheran Church, now inactive, on the right the remains of the Missionary chapel, also abandoned for years.

Signs of hope, the new Silverdale Community center and Koochiching County garage.

Farming has now been almost completely abandoned and logging is now mechanized. Instead of being cut into 8 foot (or 100 inch) logs entire tree lengths are delivered to the mills.

For the story and Pictures of the Greaney, Rauch, Silverdale History Day 2004, 2006 and 2009   Click HERE
For more information on Silverdale, also check out: http://www.silverdalemn.com/

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Black Bear Viewing at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary - The American Bear Association

The Vince Schute Wildlife Sanctuary is just North East of Silverdale near Nett Lake. for more information Click here