Itasca Lumber Co. House

506 5th St. S.E., Deer River

            This house was built in 1904 by the Itasca Lumber Co., the foremost logging operation in Western Itasca County. The company’s railroad, which ran north out of Deer River, brought in logs from 20 camps, and its route saw the establishment of several small towns. The rail line was the Minneapolis & Rainy River, but was better known as the “Gut and Liver” – for the sausage and liver its cars carried to the camps.

The logs were floated down the Mississippi River for milling, but later David Joyce and former governor John S. Pillsbury built a mill at Deer River to cut up the lower-grade timber.

Itasca Lumber shut down in 1920. The house, a log one, was the superintendent’s residence, and it is the only remaining structural link to the heyday of Itasca Lumber.