Wawina is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Wawina Township,

Itasca County Itasca County ( ) is a county located in the Iron Range region of the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 45,014. Its county seat is Grand Rapids. The county is named after Lake Itasca, which is in turn a shorte ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, United States. The community is located between Grand Rapids and Floodwood at the junction of U.S. Highway 2 and Itasca County Road 25. Nearby places include Floodwood, Swan River, Warba, Jacobson, and Goodland. Wawina is located 13 miles northwest of Floodwood. Wawina is also located 23 miles southeast of

Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...

; and 53 miles northwest of

Duluth Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

. The boundary line between Itasca, Saint Louis, and Aitkin counties is nearby. The community of Wawina is located within Wawina Township (population 77). ZIP Codes 55736 (Floodwood) and 55784 (Swan River) meet at Wawina.

History

A post office called Wawina was established in 1912, and remained in operation until 1993. Wawina is a name derived from the

Ojibwe language Ojibwe ( ), also known as Ojibwa ( ), Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous la ...

''waawiinaa'' meaning "I mention him often" from ''wiinzh'' meaning "mention him/her".

Culture

Wawina has the distinction of having America's smallest telephone company. Northern Telephone Company of Minnesota (Area Code 218–488) serves fewer than 40 subscribers. It gained brief fame as the last place in the continental United States to use a trunking system (inter-office circuits) that was called "N2 Carrier", an analog system that utilized Multi-Frequency (MF) tones and the infamous

2600 Hz 2600 hertz (2600 Hz) is a frequency in hertz (cycles per second) that was used in telecommunication signaling in mid-20th century long-distance telephone networks using carrier systems. Tone signaling carrier systems operated in the sta ...

control tone for answer supervision and idle trunk condition. This system was much loved by phone

phreak Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term ''phreak'' is a se ...

s as it was the same system which the now infamous

John Draper John Thomas Draper (born March 11, 1943), also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch, or Crunchman after a toy boatswain's call whistle once given away in boxes of Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal that for some years could be used to make free long d ...

made famous. The era ended in June 2006, when the privately owned exchange switched to a digital trunk. Phone hacking attempts from across the nation had placed a large burden on the extremely small telephone company serving Wawina Township.

References

* Rand McNally Road Atlas – 2007 edition – Minnesota entry * Official State of Minnesota Highway Map – 2011/2012 edition * Mn/DOT map of Itasca County – Sheet 1 – 2011 edition {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Minnesota Unincorporated communities in Itasca County, Minnesota