Providing the Public with Early Issues of the Range Facts
To preserve and make available the early issues of the Range Facts, a weekly newspaper that was published from 1934 to 1941 by W.A.Fisher and edited by George A. Perham, It covered the Mesabi and Vermilion range towns as well as adjacent rural areas and gave extensive coverage to state, county and local affairs, sports, social news, farming, obituaries and Depression programs. Copies were not sent to the Minnesota Historical Society until 1942 when the Virginia Daily Enterprise assumed ownership.
The Range Facts was a broadly distributed weekly newspaper that began in 1934 and was sold to the Virginia Daily Enterprise in 1942. After that date, copies were sent to the Minnesota Historical Society for preservation, but the first eight years were "lost" until about 15 years ago when several city council persons, cleaning out basement vaults in the Virginia City Hall, located eight bundles of Range Facts neatly wrapped in Kraft paper and inventoried by WPA workers during the late 1930s. These were the issues from 1934 through 1941 and were donated to the Virginia Area Historical Society.
(b) Statewide Historic and Cultural Grants. (i) $2,250,000 in 2010 and $4,500,000 in 2011 are appropriated for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional or other historical or cultural organizations; or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources. Funds are to be distributed through a competitive grants process. The Minnesota Historical Society shall administer these funds using established grants mechanisms, and with assistance from the advisory committee created herein.