M issabe Junction continues to serve the community by providing a direct connection in Duluth with the Range cities to the north. Part of its allure was the gritty, blue-collar neighborhood that once surrounded it called Slabtown. The area was filled with homes, small mom and pop businesses, hundreds of tall trees, sidewalks, and the kind of every day people that you were proud to call your neighbors. That all came to an end during the early 1960s when government operated Urban Renewal Programs swept through this country. Slabtown got a face lift and a new interstate highway smack through the middle of it. This month we look back at Slabtown and the way things used to be near the train tracks at Missabe Junction.