50 Years, 50 Legacies: Leslie Beatty
#28: Leslie Beatty
Written by Nyle Zikmund
Beatty (left) at Orr Ranger Station, 1913
Minnesota State Archives
Leslie Beatty was born on January 27, 1891 in Tower, Minnesota. At the time, Tower was a lumber town as well as the railhead for the whole Rainy River County. Leslie started working for a lumber company at age twelve.
He graduated from high school in 1909 and in June of that year, was hired as a helper for a photographer. They traveled the north county, returned via Crane Lake (Harding) and took the portage to the Vermillion Dam and a steamboat back to Tower. These early adventures traveling by canoe, steamboat, and rail through the border lakes inspired a lifelong commitment to the woods and waters of northern Minnesota.
Beatty on Adam’s gas speeder, 1915
Minnesota State Archives
When the Minnesota Legislature created the State Forest Service in 1911, Beatty became one of its first Forest Rangers, reporting for duty in Orr to Fred Bessette Jr. The work was rugged and often solitary – long days enforcing fire laws, traveling by foot, canoe, and logging train. Yet Beatty thrived. He and fellow ranger Fred Bessette became close friends, shaping a new era of forest management in the region.
Beatty considered the early years of his career, from his initial hire to the early twenties as some of the most eventful and exciting of his life. A sampling includes the emergence of the Virginia Rainy Lake Company logging operations, continuance of commercial fishing, organization of Namakan Mining Company around 1915, completion of the dam at Kettle Falls in 1915 and subsequent flood of 1916, construction of the Kettle Falls Hotel, receipt of the first gasoline powered motor boat and rail speeder, promotion to head ranger in 1916 and enlistment in military service with the onset of World War I.
Lumbering defined northern Minnesota through the early 1920s, but by the decade’s end, the great forests were nearly exhausted. As the sawmills slowed and the Great Depression began, a new chapter emerged, shaped by tourism and a growing appreciation for the region’s natural beauty.
The construction of U.S. Highway 53 in 1921 opened the border lakes to travelers, and the state began developing public access points and campgrounds, including Gappy’s Landing on Kabetogama. When the highway from Cusson to International Falls was completed, thousands of visitors could reach the area for the first time, marking the start of a recreation-based economy that would define the decades to come.
Though Beatty’s focus was forestry, not logging, he occasionally lent a hand to the industry’s final days, towing forgotten boom logs from Namakan to Kettle Falls to complete their long journey to the mills in International Falls. But his heart lay in preservation. As logging declined, Beatty became a champion for the protection of the Kabetogama Peninsula. Inspired by the creation of the Chippewa and Superior National Forests, he worked with his lifelong friend, ally and now State Senator, Fred Bessette, to introduce legislation to create the Kabetogama State Forest in 1931.
That same decade, Beatty married Martha Bowser, a nurse and homesteader at Crane Lake. Together they raised four children and built a home that still stands today.
When Beatty retired in 1958 after forty-four years of service, he had witnessed the North Woods transform from a frontier of timber to a landscape of conservation and recreation. His daughter, Virginia Clifford, still maintains the family cabin at Crane Lake, a living reminder of her father’s enduring connection to the Voyageurs country.
Check out the full list of our 50 legacies!
This year, we’re celebrating 50 years of Voyageurs National Park by sharing 50 inspiring stories of the people who shaped its legacy. Years, 50 Legacies is a yearlong storytelling series highlighting individuals whose lives are woven into the fabric of the park – whether through conservation work, cultural traditions, recreation, research, or personal connection.
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