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Saturday, January 26, 2008
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Crosby's own Scorpions will be on display
Senior Reporter History and the preservation of a dream will be on display in Crosby next Saturday.
For some people it will be a trip down memory lane. For others, the annual Scorpion Homecoming with vintage snowmobiles will be a revelation.
Randy Harrison, an organizer with the Scorpion Homecoming event, said organizers are expecting a good turnout. People strolling through the colorful rows of Scorpion snowmobiles is a sight to see.
"It's free, it's fun and it's area history," Harrison said.
Harrison's father co-founded the Trail-A-Sled company that produced the Scorpion snowmobiles. People 50 and older are likely to remember the innovative sleds produced here on the Cuyuna Range. Others who attend the homecoming event may have worked on them in Crosby. For younger people born after the company went belly-up, Harrison said it's a surprise the machines were made in their own backyard.
"They find that to be fascinating," he said.
Harrison said the Scorpion sleds have a retro style that people find interesting. "In their day, they were pretty hip from a design standpoint."
Trail-A-Sled Inc. was founded in 1959 in Crosby-Ironton with three founders and one employee. The company would grow to employ hundreds and have an annual payroll measured in the millions. The company even produced a line of snowmobiles - the Stingerette - specifically geared toward women.
In 1963, the Trail-A-Sled concentrated on the production of Scorpion snowmobiles and experimented with a vulcanized process to eliminate the cleated track system.
Two years later the company had 53 employees and was making 20 units a day. The annual company payroll was $200,000. A year later, the company had grown to 125 employees and was making 50 units each day. And by 1968, the company employed 300 and had an annual payroll that was nearing $2 million. That year, the company had a new plant and plans to make 20,000 sleds for 1969. Employment continued to rise along with the payroll with 400 workers and a payroll of $2.5 million.
More expansions came in the following years. The employees rose to more than 500 and Scorpion Inc. made 22,000 machines in 1970. Seven years later, the company added the production of mopeds. And a year after that the company was purchased by Arctic Enterprises.
In 1980, high gas prices and interest rates and a poor economy combined as issues and Arctic Cat consolidated and decided to sell the Crosby-Ironton manufacturing facility. The history of the company, listed at the www.trailasled.com Web site, notes the Scorpion brand did not survive Arctic Cat's reorganization.
But collectors and Scorpion enthusiasts haven't allowed the innovative brand and the creation to be shuffled off to the history pages alone. And that history and the years of work creating the Scorpions right here in Crow Wing County will be on display Feb. 2.
RENEE RICHARDSON may be reached at renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5852.
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