Lost Iron Range - Full Documentary

Funding for the

lost

Iron Range is provided by the citizens of Minnesota through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Iron Range, the name itself describes both the metal that made the region famous and the inner strength of its early settlers. Iron, in fact, learned from the natives who had lived there for generations, the explorers traveled by canoe to the region northeast of The Shining, the great seawater. Gigi took note of Tall Timber that continued for miles and miles after the original explorers and then the fur trade here and then the next big thing was that the logging industry first with the ax and then the two men saw that they worked during the harsh winters by the bounty of the vast white pine forest harvested for the benefit of an expanding nation.

First the loggers came and cut down the trees and Shi Los took them out and then the miners came and they found

iron

and that's the story of the

range

. I have heard that, growing hundreds of times over, deep-pocketed entrepreneurs and investors were eager to exploit the region's wealth, but to do so they needed capital of the human variety when the influx of foreigners came to these parts it didn't look like that, but sites like this are a testament to why they came first to harvest the virgin forest and make a living from the wood, then to go deeper into the earth for the metals, it was the

iron

in the rock that would define this region and transform it.

From forests and forests to boom towns that grew up around a new booming industry, in the winter the weather became so cold that they had to shut down mining. for the season, but that did not stop immigrants from arriving by boat or rail. How they found out about the Iron Mountain Range is one of those questions that we don't know, the story, we heard it too, my brother or my uncle. about this, but we never found the brother uncle who first heard about it. They came to America for a reason: to work in the mines, make a little money, and go back to the old country and show everyone that they had done something with their lives. the type of people who came to the

range

very ambitious, very hardworking, where others could only imagine the difficulties, the first to arrive saw the promise with hard work and determination, they created urban sites in the dense and almost roadless forest, then they came Corporate, Incorporated and Booming Villages.

Cities like Virginia and Hibbing, mining companies were king when big steel companies became a driving force of the 20th century and if ore was found under the streets, entire towns were moved. My parents were the last people living in North Hibbing in 1967 and there was mining. The company office was in the building next to our house and was still in service, but everything else was gone. Large companies like Oliver, which mine part of the Carnegie Steel Empire, rose to fame thanks to the rich minerals of the Iron Range, but that success was based on the backs of pioneers like Merit Long Year and Bennett and generations of miners who worked in Dank subsoil and in huge open pit mines, now the mining company tended to use competition: who is better?

These gangs of Italians or these Finnish gangs that can produce more or each other. everyone was the same color of iron or everyone was a minority up here everyone, whether it was Finnish, whether it was Slavic, it was Montenegrin, it was Bulgarian, it was a minority, so everyone was on equal terms, these mines and the miners of all nationalities helped build the great American cities and won two world wars and, although the richest ore was soon mined, the new mining techniques kept the mining culture of the range intact, all those with red or stains on their boots stood their ground despite all the changes. them that is the idea that all of us in the Cordillera have been raised without anything being permanent these are the stories of those who first came to open this untamed country these are the stories of the Lost Iron Range the story of the Cordillera de Hierro is the story of America, a remote, wild land of swamps, streams, lakes, and tall timber where immigrants traveled from thousands of miles away to make a new home.

Early settlers discovered that life was hard and roads were mere trails through mosquito-infested wetlands and primeval forests. The immensity The White Pine Forest must have really been something, it had to have been a dark, deep and almost terrifying forest because it was very dense with this ancient wood, the first to find fortune in the region were the loggers who marveled at the towering pine trees that filled the landscape in what seemed to be an endless expanse of forest of the 50 million acres of land in Minnesota, about 15 million acres were forest, approximately 3 to 4 million acres of that forest were white pines , ideally a tree.

Suitable for the needs of the pioneers, no other softwood has been more useful in America than the white pine that provided shelter to the early settlers, logs for the cabin, shingles for the roof, and dies for the floor, all They came from white pine. also provided implements to the incoming settler Furniture fences all Needs in a new country Agnes M Larson history of the white pine industry in Minnesota 1949 the tall white pines that dominated the northern landscape produced lumber that was both strong and light, plus it had Another plus: when you put a cross saw on a white pine, you know you can get through it pretty well or even in the days when they had to cut them down, the lumber barons were quick to secure the rights to vast tracks of the Northern Forest.

By the late 1890s, in a span of just 50 years, most of these magnificent pines had been felled, transported along major waterways to Sawmills further south, and then sold to meet the incessant demand for lumber for build new homes and businesses. I had seen what I would call the second harah, many mills in the Bay area where the St Lord St Louis empties into Lake Superior and of course also the clo area, although a large part of the forest had been harvested In the early 20th century Northern Minnesota's greatest logging history was yet to unfold, it would come to be known as the last white pine lumber mills of Northern Minnesota and what a great achievement it was built here on the shore of Silver Lake in Virginia Minnesota , by Frederick with Houser, was the largest white pine sawmill in the world and would set records rarely seen before or since the massive Virginia and Rainy Lake Mill opened in 1910, employing nearly 2,000 men and routinely sawing to almost 1 million. board feet of lumber per day were actually made up of three sawmills and a series of sorting and storage areas the Virginia operations stretched along the shore of Silver Lake this area was once completely covered in lumber completely the lake was covered with logs well and were there In winter and summer they had a system called a hot pond.

I don't know if you've heard the word, but what they did was push steam from the top floor. You see the plant on the other side of the road. Well, they put steam into the lake to maintain it. since the freeze and to this day makes this lake not freeze this area would have been entire trams going from pile after pile of wood that is stacked very high and there were warehouses with an investment of $ 1 million back in 198 that is a lot of money for them seven main platforms in that mill um 3,000 men working in the forest 3,000 M of railroad the railroad was key to the operation of the warehouse while before logging used the rivers to float the precious logs to the mill that was not an option for the white pine forests of far northern Minnesota, much of the land that produced white pine in this area was located north of the Laurentian Divide, now in the Laurentian Divide logs could not be driven down those streams to south to the sill, not even to the lock.

It didn't really start on a large scale like the white pine mill here in Virginia didn't start on a large scale until the railroads came along and then the logs could be shipped south. The mill operations in Virginia were impressive, but it was the thousands of lumberjacks employed. by the Virginia and Rainy Lake company that made it possible. The army of men moving through the forest at that time must have been something to see. Many of these men were professional loggers who made their way to Minnesota from logging camps in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. and in other places others came to settle in the region and then found work as lumberjacks in the Northwoods camps, by all accounts they were tough, hard-working characters and life in the camp must have been something else, logging was the work of winter and the woodcutters lived together. in H Hy they built camps that provided limited protection from the harsh weather, dirt floors and some of them even had to live in tents all winter, most of them were Trent buildings, they would only use them for a year or two and would then move on once the pine trees were felled, they had to be transported out of the forest and stored for shipment to the mill in the early days, this was accomplished with a combination of human power and horses on specially constructed ice roads, later had to be loaded onto these slaves and build these large loads and take them to a river or a railroad, they did it in winter so they could build a sheet of ice on that road with ruts cut for the sleigh runners it took skill and experience to load These trunks and the men at the top of the packing order did so with pride.

There is a well-known image of a load of logs, it has 34,800 board feet, it is about 20 feet long. Solid 20 foot tall and wide pack with 16 ton long logs pulled by a four horse team with nearly 5000 men in the woods 900 horses and 3000 yards of railroad track Virginia and Rainy Lake Sawmill continued to set records for two decades, but in late 1929 Frederick Warehouser was ready to move his lumber company Empire West. Did he have enough notice to know that the Depression was coming? I don't believe it. He just saw that even after only 20 years of having a world-class plant, it was a huge investment: 300 million board feet a year, a million board feet a day, you know often he decided to pack his bags and go to the west, so the Mill closed in October 1929, a month later the US Stock Market crashed, the start of some very difficult times across the country and in the Iron Range as prospecting gave way to the promise of rich deposits or iron.

Mining workers came en masse to dig, they needed to settle near the work site, it was usually done with housing built by the mining company near the mine itself because transportation was not that common, it was mainly on foot, so the The location was close to the mine, so workers got up and went straight to work without spending much time in transit. The word location actually comes from Michigan and was used whenever something was located in a wilderness area that they had to say where the location was going to be and it was transferred to mining properties.

These mining company communities appeared in large numbers throughout the Iron Range. Some estimate that there were nearly 200 locations, 175 of them in the The massabi vary between the 1890s and 1920s, but not all existed at the same time. Many times three or four locations would disappear and then two more would emerge, depending on where the mining was, but all the locations were company-run mining locations. you drew the water from the company well, you made your purchases according to the company processes, it could be delivered from somewhere or at the company store, they just allowed an area near the body and said you could build a house there, the result was tar.

Paper shacks, small shanties, the first type of location that appeared from the beginning, they were difficult places, residential enclaves that amounted to little more than an illegal settlement, this is a location in Genoa and we are looking at the buildings around here, they are the remains of whatever. Jon's location was a suburb of ancient Sparta. Sparta was one of the first cities in the area as mining advanced with new processes and technology. Mining companies recognized the need to accommodate well-trained workers, when that started to happen the locations took on a completely new look, they had a nice central plaza with green grass sidewalks, a school, a hospital and all the workings of a royal city alone.

One of those locations was section 3 outside of Elely in the Vermilion Iron Range. Helen Lachner grew up there and still resides. close, oh yeah, you were born here when she 1921 said it was a long time ago, yeah, so this is a little bit of your old territory oh yeah,So, as a kid, would you go and explore these areas? Oh yeah, we were always exploring doing what we could. but there was nothing to do, otherwise you know, no, well, school was just for the teachers to teach us and that was it, so we had to have fun themselves, they used to immerse themselves in this big area here that was what we call the big hole Yeah, we walked on the other side, but it was fun, they were all platforms, you know, from one pit to the other, then there's a tunnel on the other side that you could walk through, so actually mine shafts were always a part of your life oh yeah sure the section 30 location was built around the section 30 mine that operated for 14 years with the last of its 1.5 million tons or It was sent in 1923, all the people stayed there, all my friends stayed in section 30 there was a hospital here once and, uh, skating rinks, we all had to have fun, you know, uh, but the school stayed open for a while the school stayed open, yes it did, dozens of children were taught in the section 30 Schoolhouse in the years that followed how many children were in the community, oh my goodness there were four classrooms and how many in each classroom, so there had to be between 15 and 20 in each class, there were a lot of children in the section 30 location. it had a dance room in the Movie House, much of the foundation of the opal store still you can see today every noon we would buy candy and it used to have grass a little fuzzy on the top anyway we used to pick them up and bring them in our On the way home, back to school, we would pick them up and take them to her and she would give us Candy for every stalk we brought to it.

Mr. Opal was a jolly old man and of course he knew we were leaving soon, so I guess he put up with us kids especially, so we walked back to school while ore was being mined along the Iron Range. Locations were torn down, moved or abandoned, in some cases being absorbed by nearby incorporated cities. All that remains are a few houses from the old location and the foundations of buildings scattered around the region. Helen, her parents, and her 15 brothers and sisters lived in her two-bedroom house for several years, then Helen started her own family there. Old Homestead house, yeah, okay, I did, yeah, until my husband decided one day that we had to move to Elely and I said no way, I'm not leaving section 30, but the house is still one of the few buildings in the previous location. section 30 of the site a mining community that wasn't actually a town but always felt at home the flood of immigrants to the Iron Range brought workers from nearly two dozen nations, most coming from poverty or national strife, they came from Western and Eastern Europe Scandinavia In the British Isles it was not an easy trip to make, but they all came for the work and the promise of a better life and brought with them their separate ways and customs.

A group of Jews began settling here in the Iron Range a short time ago. At the time when the Massabi range in particular began to open, most of them came from Eastern Europe, they were fleeing what was happening at that time in the Russian Empire, the pums, the persecution that they were experiencing, this was a land of opportunity, they did not. They didn't come here to be miners, that wasn't their area of ​​interest, but they realized that miners were potential customers, it was a chain migration, one family came and then another family came and brought another family in the 1990s. 1920, there were 1,100 Jews here.

Considering there were probably only about 25,000 in the entire state, I mean that's a pretty good number of Jews living here, things are going well, they came here to make a new life, their house of worship became their place of worship. meeting, it became a place where they could maintain their traditions and also where they could tell other people who they were they couldn't do it as individuals they couldn't they were poor but together they could make that statement in the house of worship that they erected four of those houses of worship. worship throughout the region and live lives that might not have been possible in other parts of the nation for the state.

These four synagogues that eventually formed here in the Iron Range are the only ones in rural Minnesota; there were no others anywhere else. that four congregations here EV Chism Hibbing in Virginia and they keep those congregations here you could worship openly and you could build your church in a synagogue on the corner of a busy street and no one was going to call and give you any trouble, we really found no evidence of discrimination like which was found in Minneapolis, which almost until the 1960s was known as the anti-Semitic capital of the nation, this area did not experience that, so this building was built in 199 1910 by Jewish families who had settled here in Virginia.

It was the first house of worship that was made of brick, it is a beautiful red brick building, the first to have glorious stained glass windows with Jewish symbols and Hebrew letters, we have Noah's Ark there, it is very rare to find a symbol of Noah's Ark. Noah in a synagogue also. the story of Noah's Art and survival these people came here on a boat these were immigrants who also survived the Jews in the countryside not only survived but prospered helping to build country towns like Virginia and Hibbing where you could often find Blocks long stretches of successful businesses owned by Jewish families like the Roman Block on Chestnut Street in Virginia were the Milovitz brothers' businesses, the Chandling family clothing stores, Ostro Grocers and many more.

The Liba Theater in Hibbing was owned by the Edstein family and named after the grandmother of Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, whom we know as Bob Dylan, the Jewish families who had immigrated to the area thought they were here to stay, unlike others ethnic settlers who hope to return home one day, in fact, when you look at the people who came to this region. Think about them, sometimes they came to America for a reason: to work in the mines, make a little money, and go back to the old country and show everyone that they had done something with their lives.

Most of the young people who came here, as we call them. birds of passage the Jews had no homeland to return to, I mean let's face it, for the Jews, Iron Range became their new home and they served it with Hometown Pride, they had the sun club which was the auxiliary of the woman here. Who would prepare food packages, this is in the early 20th century, that they would distribute to families, not to Jewish families, but to families in need? The miner would be killed there, but the mining companies didn't provide anything, they would bring food to that family, the Jewish community here. made a contribution to variety, but the long-term future of that community was not going to be the failure of the mining industry, which meant a shortage of jobs for future generations and you know the schools here were great, so many of these children went to college.

Jews and others, because they were so well educated, asking their children to return here was asking their children to make a great sacrifice as Iron Range businesses and industries declined and Jewish families moved away a For one, all four Iron Range synagogues were closed. or torn down with the Virginia building the last to lose its congregation, although it became conservative, this was an Orthodox Jewish congregation that required 10 men to have a servant to be able to perform a prayer service that in the last decade of its life there was no 10 men who were able to gather for a prayer service Today, the Benet Abraham Synagogue in Virginia is restored as a museum and cultural center, so while the congregation and most of the Jewish families are no longer in the Iron Range, the building serves as a testament to their lives uniting the current community and keeping memories of the past alive excelsia carb bur next stop Morris Avenue Next stop Morris Avenue in the early 20th century the entire country was caught up in electrification Fever driven streetcars appeared by chains of lightning in cities large and small, creating what became known as tram suburbs, workers could now live further from their jobs thanks to cheap transportation on tram lines, with mining growing along with the number of cities and locations multiplying in the Iron Range, the idea of ​​an electric intercity streetcar line took off, and of course electric intercity railroads were all the rage across the country at the time, so apparently some folks at Boston Financial got involved and thought who could earn some money by providing transportation service. up there on the Iron Range serving the miners and locations and in 1910 the maaba railway company was formed the following year inspection and engineering work began on the line in July 1912 workers began laying the railway and on the eve On Christmas Day of that year service began between In Virginia and Gilbert, within a month there were runs every hour from early morning until midnight.

The streetcar carried everyone from mine workers to businessmen, women and children, and could take you from right here in downtown Gilbert to Hibbing and just about anywhere. in the middle, to make it easy to cut, people would get in the car on the eighth and go to Virginia to shop or to Hibbing or Chisum and take another car and come home that day, which gave them a lot of carrying capacity in the which the masaba railway ran. 35 miles of track from Gilbert in the east through Sparta and 8th and into Virginia, where the power plant and headquarters were located, the route then continued through Mountain Iron Bule and Chisum before reaching Hibbing.

To the west, the Masaba Railway provided first-class service for its passengers and the company invested heavily in track generating equipment, stations and rolling stock. In total, the company spent about $3 million to equip the line. A substantial amount of money in 1913, built to good standards. Cars were built and insulated for cold winters. probably capable of about 45M per hour which was a pretty good speed in that time period, very little remains of the Massaba Railway remains today, but remains of its original RightWay can still be found. If you know where to look, we're standing in the same place.

Old intercity electric tram line that connected the towns of the Maaba mountain range and it is a bit surprising to some people that we found a tram that connected these small towns and places, but there were something like 44 sites in this area. 44 small towns, most of them located. Mining activity has increased the population of the town served by the Msabu railway to 55,000 people and the line flourished. Shift changes in the mines. The trams were

full

of miners going to work. Sometimes they had to have two. or three cars to operate mining was a dirty business that required some special adaptations on board, the seats in them were made of rattan and that was because the miners took the miners home from work in dirty clothes and if they had upholstered cloth or mohair, you could see The seat cushions would have been very, very dirty and passengers would receive iron or on them the intensification of mining operations also presented difficulties for the Massaba railway, which had to be routed and diverted around tracks new or existing, sometimes existing tracks had to be moved to accommodate mining.

From 1919 to 1921 they had the entire line between Hibbing and Chol relocated. In the 1920s better roads were built between Iron Range towns and bus transportation began to undermine Massaba's rail business. It has succumbed to competition from buses and cars as roads have become tougher. better people drove and did not ride on Rubin, the company began operating at a loss and became a receiver in 1924 after several attempts to sell the electric railway without any buyer, the decision was made to cease all operations the last run in masaba Interurban Railroad was April 16, 1927. Behind these doors, the history of the Massaba Railroad lives on thanks to volunteers at the Minnesota Streetcar Museum in the Twin City suburb of Exceler.

They have an epic restoration in progress. It is the only inner city car that we are aware of. Of that still exists today, most of the cars there are taken out of service, scrapped and completely destroyed or sold and repurposed as a cabin or place for people to store things. It was found in 1977. It was stored in Northwoods near the evth and was used as a hunting cabinet at the time, most likely when it was taken out of service it had been sold and completely stripped of all its components only the bodywork remained intact. The Minnesota Streetcar Museum operates several historic streetcarsat his Twin City locations and plans to one day restore the map.

Railway car number 10 is as good as new. Each car is unique, so they will check it very care

full

y and take notes. how everything is organized, they slowly take apart everything they can keep or preserve, they will keep it if something needs to be rebuilt, then they will basically take the appropriate measures and have the carpenter rebuild it to the exact specifications of the original masaba car memories. The railroads are kept alive by people like Dick Stoner, whose father was a motorman on the local line in Hibbing. Well, he came from Grand Rapids and worked for Great Northern.

He moved to Hibbing, worked for Oliver and eventually worked his way up to being a locomotive engineer, however in those days when winter came they closed and there was no work so he went to work on Carline Street which operated all year. Interested in trains since he was a very young child, Stoner began collecting toys. Trains and then began building model trains His large collection of hand-made models includes exact replicas due to the Masaba Railway intercity cars complete down to the smallest detail, gradually an interest in the Maaba Railway evolved and I began to collect information , photographs and everything I could about it and I ended up building models of it, although it only ran for 15 years.

The intercity system in the Iron Range was an important milestone in the area's evolution by providing convenient and efficient transportation for passengers. It helped connect the towns in the Iron Range and its people. He met my mother. there and finally they got married and it was all because she was on the tram. You know, my mother used to take the tram. She often talked about it. She was going to meet my father, who lived there. He worked for Hills Grocery Store in. They and Virginia would meet, which is how they came together, just two of many examples of a modern mode of transportation that transformed lives while also making transportation history on the Iron Range.

By the early 20th century, the Iron Range was rapidly becoming a breeding ground for industrial growth. and potentially one of the most prosperous regions in the nation. Prosperity meant more expendable income and a chance to make a name for yourself. Beyond its rich reserve of natural resources across the country, new sporting events were appearing on the scene and Iron Range being at the forefront of a particular race was very important back then because the automobile was still a relatively new invention in 1904. , Hibbing's first automobile, owned by Fred Smith, arrived in the Village almost as soon as it arrived, residents forming the Hibbing Speedway.

Association and the construction of a Race Track began in grandstands in the place of the pool. Initially the competition had horses and later motorcycles took to the track, but in 1909 the Sai range had more than 50 cars and the Association was organized. of Hibbing Automobiles. In September 1911 the first automobile race was held at Hibbing Raceway. The city's first car owner, Fred Smith, was the winner and from there, sporty race car driving sparked people who really had their hearts in promoting motor racing in this area and would do almost anything. to make it a success. Some of the races held here were advertised from California to New York.

Hibbing was intended to become a nationwide motorsports center long before today's stock car racing. Some of the first automobiles ever thrilled racing fans with feats of speed in the town of Hibbing. Some of the country's first motorsports competitions were held at the Iron Range with major world records set right here, the Hipping Raceway was quite a popular venue for racers from all over um, but road racing at that time was still very Popular with the public because people now owned their cars for the first time. and traveling with them and road racing was something they could relate to more than racing on a track, so to complement the half-mile oval dirt track in the grandstands, they set up a 10-mile circuit through the city ​​streets and highways and set the stage for what will be the largest racing event ever held in Hibbing, a stand-alone 100m road race, a former drag racer.

Historian and racing enthusiast Dave AO stumbled upon the details of that important race. It started with a document that I discovered was for sale, uh, from the estate of a major publisher of motorsports books in this country and they were handwritten notes from an official who was at a race in Hibbing on the 4th of July. of 1916. There were about six cars in the race. AO says mechanical problems during practice knocked out other cars before the start, this is the only known photo of the race, but Ao's diligence unearthed plenty of other evidence of the prestigious occasion.

I was able to find all the American automobile associations, uh triaa uh, records for their penalties by year and by penalty number, and sure. enough, the race on July 4, 1916 is sanctioned. I have the sanction number and it was issued to the Hibbing Auto Club by searching the Chism newspaper and the Hibbing newspaper. I found all the details, including the report of a train crash on the same day that was likely caused by race planners, part of the race course was on 1 Avenue in Hibbing, where Howard Street is now located. First Avenue crossed the railroad tracks, the tracks were owned by the Great Northern Railway and the railroad officials wanted to cover the tracks with dirt, uh, so that the cars could pass without hitting the actual tracks that they covered above the railroad tracks. tracks at that crossing and a short time later, a large northern passenger train passed by, hit the sand at the crossing and rolled the locomotive over, um, there were some significant injuries, although there were no deaths, and a number of lawsuits occurred quite important.

That incident didn't stop the race; however, the Hibbing 100 Mile Race on Indie Road was completed by Chisum native Elmer Shannon, and Victor Shannon ran in the Indianapolis 500 for 3 years. Later, there was no Indianapolis 500 in 1917 and 1918 due to World War I. During that period, Elmer Shannon purchased a Dusenberg racing car and when the Indianapolis 500 resumed in May 1919, he headed to India with his new racing car. was entered as the Massaba Special, but that's far from the end of Hibbing's association with independent and national racing. Widely renowned, it is almost incredible how many world-famous drivers and race cars have attended races and Hibbing, at least 26.

Drivers who are currently enshrined in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame have been inhibited. and that would include Parnelli Jones and Johnny Rutherford. It also includes four Indianapolis 500 winners who have raised the original Hibbing Raceway in Hibbing as much of the Iron Range fell. Mine Pit fell victim to mining interest and was absorbed by rust from the hall over the years. His replacement has served the enthusiasm of AO and many like him, proud Racers fans and residents more than happy to follow the racing tracks of Legends of times past. As iron mining increased, cities and towns sprang up around the booming new industry, one of the largest being Hibbing, which in the early 20th century would become known as the iron or capital of the world.

Hibbing started like so many others. Range Bergs was a tottering hamlet with buildings perched on the edge of sprawling mine shafts, but it quickly became a prominent business town, Lincoln High School in this space and the conception was to have the best, it was a k to 14 they wanted well. Best of all my owners of M wanted their people to have good churches good education good education because they wanted men to be able to raise their families in the best environment possible this was their vision that is why the company encouraged the growth of the city by supporting their commercial district the expansion of neighborhoods and the construction of majestic public buildings such as the Carnegie Library, a magnificent City Hall and an ornate Courthouse, as mining advanced, we entered an era of what we called the big mining company and, Of course, the big producer of steel for the Missi range and the Rilan range was United States Steel Corporation and its subsidiary Oliver, now there aren't many people in the range who don't know what Oliver was, it was the big company that made things.

In 1915 they had a workforce of 10,000 workers. Oliver's employees worked in the open shafts of the Hall Rust and Mahoning mines, excavating craters that moved ever closer to the city. The city asked the mining company if they have any plans for more plans because they had already come through to the north, they had come from the east and they had to move the North Hibbing baseball park to the south or what was called North Hibbing at the time and the mining company said there were no more plans, so he went and made improvements in the community, a new library, tripled the size of the original library.

The tram tracks were improved, but with the advent of World War I and the realization that there was more rich ore beneath the city streets, the company prepared to move the city. By the way, about how many people lived here when they first decided the town would have to move, I think it was around 15,000 at the time, some were offered money for their house and when they sold they tried to force the other. People sell at a low price and you can read many stories of people who were expelled for almost nothing, others endure trying to get more money.

There was even a lawsuit from the businessmen at Pine Street and Third in which they sued Oliver. uh, saying that they were paying them too little or offering too little for their property and they ultimately

lost

, so there was opposition to the measure. Oh, definitely, the people felt they should get more money for their property and that's why they resisted and The townspeople didn't want to leave their homes, they were quality homes with yards and gardens, many included outbuildings for pets and livestock. That's great, you can see them. I said, a footprint back there, you can probably see that it was probably one of the entrances to the The house from the door was apparently all locked and fenced that way, most of them had livestock, either chickens, pigs or cows.

In 1918, the Oliver Mining Company began purchasing property rights to make way for more mining between 1918 and In 1921, about 200 structures were moved to the site of what is now Hibbing and, uh, the movement was underway and they had up to 198 steam locomotives of each configuration. I've seen heisers culminating in conventional, um everything, just moving them, guys would say up to three houses. One day he passed by their house watching them go south, those houses were owned by Oliver's employees and at the time Oliver wanted to go in and start mining in that area, they sold the house to the person who lived in it for a dollar and the deal was and I don't know the time period, but you had to move it within a certain period of time $100 per room to move it whether you were from North Hibbing to South Hibbing or from North Hibbing to Chism or I think some houses even went to flat rate of $100 per room.

While most survived the move, some simply couldn't resist the bumpy roads along the way and those wonderful stone and brick buildings like the Carnegie Library and the courthouse eventually fell victim to the wrecking ball. and the move. This continued for many years, starting in 1919 and I heard of people, even in the early 50's, seeing houses going south from this area here. This was the last area where things were taken out of here. Most of North Hibbing was replaced by this. a huge hole, but when the mine's expansion stopped what was left was a lamp post that once illuminated the path for city people returning home at night, a fire hydrant molded from iron scrolls like a work of art for a study of the city that The Historical Society moved to Hibbing has a model of Old North Hibbing and each of the buildings and sites that are no longer there and for its part the Oliver mining company did invest in structures and replacement establishments that in many cases outnumber the old ones by years.

By 1890, the existence of a valuable steel ore in the Vermilion Range of northern Minnesota was well established, not far from the southwest, and rested near the surface in quantities that no prospector could have imagined. An even larger site was placed on the cusp of Discovery thanks to the Meritt family. The early settlers of Onot and Delo discovered the riches of the Massabi Iron Range. Four of Lewis and Heeth's children and three grandchildren. Merritt became known as the Seven Iron Men, a title basedThrough hard work, they became loggers. He crossed the forest north of Duth until he reached the Iron Range.

His father, LS J, came to the Iron Range during the time of the gold rush and when he came back, he came back and said, "You know, there might not be any gold." there he said, but when they get to extract that iron, he says there will be enough for everyone. The sons combed the region inspired by their father's belief that good mineral would be found in the Massabi Mountain Range, so the story goes. Cassus Meritt made the initial. Discovering he stumbled upon a chunk of what turned out to be rich iron ore in 1887 while he was searching for a railway line between Duth and Winnipeg, while the find was a breakthrough, there was still much work ahead.

Merit spent the next few years mapping potential bodies and digging test pits. finally in 1890 they found what they were looking for on November 16, 1890 Workman found hematite in a test pit in the northwest quarter of Section 3 Township 58 range 18 West of the fourth principal meridian, the mine now called Mountain Iron was the first soft ore body discovered in Massabi Iron Range Horus V Winchill report on Massabi Iron Range 1891 although the find gained financial backing proved difficult because this mineral was unlike any other previously known, but the mineral found in Maaba Range was 'Not the type of ore found anywhere else and the steel makers started making steel from MSI or they sent men to look at the range msabu and most of them said this can't be ore from iron.

Iron ore is deep iron ore. hard and heavy, it looks like blue clay, nothing more, but the merits rested on the quality of the powdered blue mineral that would become the basis of the United States steel industry. The Merits quickly found more deposits as did others and as word spread, the frenzy of speculation created over 100 new mining companies, but the Merits were ahead of the rest, who already had leases on the best property. mining in the Massabi and, because this mineral was close to the mining surface, it would not be as expensive as Hard Rock. ore from the Vermilion Range Not only was it close to the surface but there was a large amount;

At the time, in the early 1890s, it seemed like the ore was endless and would never end. 90 miles of ore pockets across the range without the need for expensive equipment or skilled miners Merits needed some reliable transportation after failed attempts to convince railroad companies to build a line to their mineral properties Merits and his partners decided to build His own railroad was born duth massabi in the north raising $1.5 million and building a line from Mountain Iron to Stony Brook on the St. Louis River, from there the Delan Winnipeg Railroad took the AE to a dock in Superior Wisconsin.

The first shipment to or from the masabi area was received with much fanfare on November 1. 1892 In what appeared to be a triumph for Merit mining interests within the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duth, a notable link to Iron Range history has been lovingly restored. This is the commercial carriage that Mavi built for Meritt Duth Massabi and the Northern Railway that they needed. that served as a business wagon because they had to deal with the railroad, they had to deal with the mines, they had clients that took care of both aspects of the operation and therefore they needed a convenient way to get back and forth and at the same time While being able to entertain business people in the car, the massabi was built in 1893 as the personal business car of Meritt Brothers, a necessity for traveling between their mining interests, we must keep in mind that the state of the roads in 1893 may be the best.

It can be described as iffy, probably a short period during the summer when it might have dried out enough to pass easily, but getting around on the railway was definitely the best way to go. Retired Lake Superior Railroad Museum curator Tom Ganon and a team of volunteers spent 15 years returning the massabi to its former glory removed by the railroad in the late 1930s. The car was used as a cabin until it was donated to the museum in 1999 the first time I saw it it didn't look terribleimpressive because it didn't look much like a car sitting there and then it was painted white, white house paint and had a pointy roof when I went in and saw how much it was original, so of course, That was much more impressive, our guided car tour was like stepping back in time.

This part of the car would be commonly known as The Parlor or living room. It's very similar to that. It's the end that goes down the track. to look around the back and see the condition of the rail, for the most part, the woodwork that you see, all we did was clean it up because we didn't touch it at all. The green panel roof portions needed some work, sometimes extensive. work and repainting because they were damaged and/or missing the central area of ​​the car has a bathroom the original nickel silver sink and a water tank here for drinking water and on this side was the kitchen and the kitchen had a cold fire stove in a end and there would have been a sink here and then the last section of the car could be considered the dining room and here we have on the table some porcelain that was used and there are some pieces here in silver that actually say masabi.

In them, so they were in this car when it was used in this rare footage from the film, we get a glimpse of life aboard the Massabi car as company officials visit mining properties in the Iron Range. It must have been a moment of jubilation for the merits they had spent years exploring and finally opening the Massabi range to mining, but that success was very short-lived. Dissatisfied with the service they were getting from the Duth and in Winnipeg they came up with a plan and decided that we wanted our own connection to the Duth and our own Ordo, so in part there was that desire to build about the last third of the railway and then build Gold, which got them into trouble.

Much has been written about what went wrong, but ultimately, the loan agreements with industrialist John D Rockefeller along with the Panic of 1893 wiped out the steel industry, finally began to deal with Rockefeller's interests and finally They lost everything because it was right before the Panic of '93, which is what put them in a bad spot with Rockefeller and essentially there was their need to expand when they probably could have held back and if they had, the entire history of the mountain range could be different, who knows in the blink of an eye what a Mining Empire might have been, but history remembers the Meritt family for their role in opening the world's richest Iron Range, this restored commercial car is a direct connection to that remarkable story; the main reason it has real importance is that it ties together many threads of the story in that it is related to the beginning of iron mining in Mountain Iron is related to the seven iron men the merits, so it is railroad history, mining history, family history in the form of merit, all brought together in this one object, a place where deals were made and ultimately lost.

Changing the Fortunes of an Industry: Yet another transformation in the history of the Iron Range. Minnesota citizens provide funding for the Lost Iron Range through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.