{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Pionerd","title":"The Hub of Hell: The 1935 Flour City Iron Strike","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":689,"description":"In the late summer of 1935, a violent labor confrontation erupted along 27th Avenue South when metalworkers at the Flour City Ornamental Iron Works struck for basic wage survival. Confronted by the Citizens Alliance, armed strikebreakers, and police tear gas, striking metalworkers fought back in a deadly three-day siege that left two bystanders dead and fractured the Farmer-Labor Party. In this episode of Pionerd: The Minnesota Edition, host Robert Thomas details the street-level mechanics of the standoff, the political fallout that rocked City Hall, and how a brave community shattered a thirty-year anti-union monopoly.\n\nKey Topics & Historical Highlights:\nThe Siege of 27th Avenue: Inside the five-acre Flour City complex, where plant owner Walter Tetzlaff housed replacement workers and armed guards behind a broken-glass facade.\nMidnight Crossfire at the Hub: The violent escalation on September 11, where double shifts of police, moving armored cars, and tear gas barrages turned a Seward neighborhood into urban guerrilla warfare.\nThe Innocent Bystanders: The tragic deaths of 21-year-old Melvin Bjorkland and 18-year-old Eugene Cooper, caught in the crossfire while walking through their own neighborhood.\nPolitical Fallout & Eagles Hall: How the police crackdown sparked widespread working-class rage, leading to Teamsters Leader Bill Brown's public confrontation with Mayor Thomas Latimer.\nLiving Legacy: How the former industrial plant survives today as the Ivy Building for the Arts, while Flour City's architectural ironwork remains embedded in the Foshay Tower and St. Paul Cathedral.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/TBzQA953XT-5pUk9GpM9Lck7NRVoPLOa3qejYqJMdT4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kMmRi/MTE5YzRmZTQ3ZjFk/ZjQ0OWUzODdkNGVm/MmVhMC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}