Photo Album: 1930s

The man Sigurd replaced as dean was a good friend of his, Julius Santo. The dean had been featured in four of the five fishing and hunting stories Sigurd had sold in the early 1930s to the leading outdoor magazines. Santo had a romantic past that Sigurd loved; after World War I he had prospected for gold in Mexico and eventually hooked up with the revolutionary leader Francisco "Pancho" Villa. Somehow he ended up in northern Minnesota and became dean of Ely Junior College when it opened in 1922. In January 1936, after a brief illness, Santo died, and Sigurd took over as dean of the junior college.