Mesabi Range

The Mesabi Range (upper center) is west of Lake Superior, north of Duluth, and far north of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Nearby towns include Grand Rapids, Hibbing and Virginia, Minnesota.

Miners at work on the Mesabi Range 1903.

The Mesabi Iron Range is a vast deposit of iron ore and the largest of four major iron ranges in the region collectively known as the Iron Range of Minnesota. Discovered in 1866, it is the chief deposit of iron ore in the United States. The deposit is located in northeast Minnesota, largely in Itasca and St. Louis counties. It was extensively worked in the earlier part of the 20th century. Extraction operations declined throughout the mid-1970s but rebounded in 2005. China's growing demand for iron, along with the falling value of the US dollar versus other world currencies, have made taconite production profitable again, and some mines that had closed have been reopened, while current mines have been expanded.^{[1][dead link]}

Name

Mesabi Range was known to the local Ojibwe as Misaabe-wajiw : "Giant's Mountain" or "Big-man's Mountain".^[2][3] Throughout the Mesabi Range, "Mesaba" and "Missabe" spelling variations are found along with places containing "Giant" in their names.

Formation

Most of the world's iron ore, including that contained in the Mesabi Iron Range, was formed during the middle Precambrian period. During this period, erosion leveled mountains. This erosion released iron and silica into the waters of a new sea. Marine algae living in this new sea raised the level of atmospheric oxygen. This oxygen catastrophe caused the eroded iron to precipitate into the banded iron formations found in the Mesabi Iron Range and other members of the Animikie Group.

Mining operations

Iron ore is currently mined only from open pits, although some mines operated underground early on.^[4] The mined ore is then transported away, primarily by the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway to the ports of Two Harbors and Duluth, Minnesota. In the early years of mining from the late 19th century until the 1950's mining focus was on high grade ore (hematite) that could be processed into steel without much change. However, when that supply dried up, focus shifted to lower grade ore (taconite), which requires extensive processing at large mining/processing facilites before moving to port. At Duluth, trains of up to eighty 100 ton open cars are moved out on massive ore docks to be dumped into "lakers" of up to 60,000 tons weight for movement to iron mills in Indiana and Ohio.

Much of the softer ore was formed close to the surface, allowing mining operations to be conducted via the open pit mines. The world's biggest open pit iron ore mine is the Hull-Rust-Mahoning Open Pit Iron Mine in Hibbing, Minnesota. Open pit mines that are no longer worked are a common feature along the iron range. Some of these sites have been redeveloped for other uses. For instance, the Virginia Pilot is a project which focuses on redeveloping the grounds adjacent to the old mines into low- to moderate-income residential space. The Hill-Annex Mine is now a state park and offers tours to visitors who wish to learn about mine operations. Tours are guided by former mine workers.

Currently, there are six mining/processing facilities in operation on the Iron Range. Cliffs Natural Resources owns and operates Northshore Mining which has mining operations in Babbitt, MN and crushing, concentrating (grinding) and pelletizing operations in Silver Bay, MN, along with United Taconite which has mining operations in Eveleth, MN and crushing, concentrating and pelletizing operations in Forbes, MN. Arcelor Mittal owns and operates the Minorca Mine and Plant with mining operations near Biwabik, MN and Gilbert, MN and a crushing, concentrating and pelletizing facility near Virginia, MN. United States Steel owns and operates both KeeTac and Minntac with mining and processing facilities in Keewatin, MN and Mountain Iron, MN respectively. The last facility is Hibbing Taconite which operates a mine and plant between the cities of Hibbing, MN and Chisholm, MN. The interesting thing about Hibbing Taconite is the fact that although Arcelor Mittal owns a majority stake in the company, the operating agent is actually a minority owner, Cliffs Natural Resources. United States Steel is also a minority stakeholder in Hibbing Taconite.

In addition, Essar Steel is building a mine/plant near Nashwauk, MN that has plans to not only mine and process the taconite, but eventually to produce steel on-site ready for shipment around the world. Steel Dynamics and Kobe Steel own Mesabi Nugget near Hoyt Lakes, MN which does not yet mine its own material, but does produce high-iron content nuggets. Magnetation, Inc. is one other company currently working the Iron Range, but their focus is reclaiming left over iron from ore dumps with company-designed high-power magnetic separators to produce concentrate to sell and ship throughout the world.

Notable people

Basketball Hall of Famer Kevin McHale was born and raised on the Mesabi Range in Hibbing; Robert Allen Zimmerman, later to be known as Bob Dylan, was raised in Hibbing. His song "North Country Blues" is about the decline of mining in the Mesabi Range, and its effect on miners and their families.

Popular culture

The Mesabi Range was brought to public attention by the 2005 film North Country, which depicts a fictionalized version of the events surrounding Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., a sexual harassment, class-action lawsuit that female miners brought against a Mesabi Range mining company.

The range is also featured in the song "Youngstown", by Bruce Springsteen, from his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad:

From the Monongahela valley, to the Mesabi Iron Range –

To the coal mines of Appalachia, the story's always the same.

Mesabi is the title song of a 2011 album by Tom Russell: "Some things never change on the Mesabi iron range . . . Bethlehem of the Troubadour Kid (Dylan - see above)"

References

1. ^ Duluth News Tribune
2. ^ Warren Upham. Minnesota Geographic Names. Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society (Minnesota Historical Society: St. Paul, 1920), page 504. Available in fulltext at Google Book Search.
3. ^ John D. Nichols and Earl Nyholm. A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe. University of Minnesota Press (University of Minnesota: Minneapolis, 1995) ISBN 0-8166-2427-5
4. ^ Iron Range - The Mining Frontier. Macalester College.

• Leith, Charles Kenneth (1903). The Mesabi Iron-bearing District of Minnesota. U.S. Geological Survey Monograph 43. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office.
• Stacy, Francis N. (September 1904). "The Iron Mines That Give Us Leadership: The Most Extraordinary Deposits In The World In The Mesabi Range". The World's Work: A History of Our Time VIII: 5235–5243. http://books.google.com/?id=AYbNAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA5235. Retrieved 2009-07-10.  Includes numerous photos of c. 1904 Mesabi iron works.

Further reading

• Beck, J. Robert. Well, Here We Are! The Hansons and the Becks. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, 2005. ISBN 059535725. A history of a Swedish-Finnish immigrant family from the Mesabi Iron Range, which details the social (and socialist) conditions of the area during its heyday.

External links

• Hill Annex Mine State Park: Minnesota DNR