had been involved in the strike and were supportive of socialist ideals and the IWW in particular, and socialist halls such as the one in Virginia existed in many of the towns along the Mesabi Range, serving as centers for community life. During this time, Local 490 established many branches in cities throughout the range. Following the end of the strike, Local 490 remained as the largest IWW organization in northern Minnesota, with about 2,000 of the 10,000 to 15,000 miners who participated in the strike remaining members. The local union was led by secretary-treasurer Charles Jacobson, a long-time native of Virginia who worked as a miner. Lumber industry in northern Minnesota With the collapse of the miners' strike, many miners went to work in the area's lumber industry. Many lumber workers in the area also worked in mining during the summer months, and in late 1916, a significant number of lumberjacks had been involved in the miners' strike and were subsequently blacklisted by those companies. During their early years, the IWW had focused on organizing lumber workers primarily in the Western and Southern United States, and they had seen tremendous success in the Pacific Northwest, but they had only minor progress in organizing the industry in Minnesota and the larger Great Lakes region. However, starting in September 1916, Local 490 began to focus on organizing the 1,200 workers of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company. The company was a concern, combining the Weyerhaeuser company's holdings in northern Minnesota, the Edward Hines Lumber Company's holdings in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the Cook and O'Brien Company's processing facilities in Virginia. The Virginia plant was at the time the largest producer of white pine wood in the world, producing an average of 1 million board feet of lumber per day. Mill workers were receptive to labor organizing due to the long hours and low pay they experienced on the job. At the Virginia plant, the mill workers' schedules included 12-hour days and 7-day weeks, with an average hourly pay of between $2.50 and $3. These workers made on average about 25 percent less than mill workers in the Pacific Northwest, which had already largely been organized by the IWW, and their hourly pay was significantly less than the average Virginia laborer's during this time. In an 84-hour week, the average Virginia and Rainy Lake mill worker made about what an average