Minnesota’s Hill Annex Mine State Park is closed and the history it preserved will be erased

Last updated on January 5th, 2025

Hill Annex Mine State Park in northern Minnesota let visitors explore Minnesota iron mining history at an actual mine. Now the park is permanently closed, and the history it preserved will disappear as mining resumes at the site.

The following is a look back at what we’ve lost with the state park closing. It’s a fully updated and expanded version of a story originally published in 2019 when limited mine tours were still being offered.

You could step into history at Hill Annex Mine State Park

Hill Annex Mine State Park was located on the Mesabi Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota. The town of Calumet sits at the edge of the site, right off US Highway 169 between Grand Rapids and Hibbing.

For decades, the Mesabi Range was the most important of three areas in Minnesota where iron-bearing rock was mined. Iron mines here fed the nation’s steel mills through two world wars. They were the region’s lifeblood for about 60 years. And they made this part of Minnesota what it is today, both economically and physically.

However, as reserves of high-quality ore ran out, even once highly-productive mines struggled to remain viable. Over time, Hill Annex, like most, closed. But not every mine closed. Iron ore – in the form of taconite – remained an important part of northern Minnesota’s economy.

But steel production is changing. And those changes make taconite less valuable while increasing the value of low-grade ore previously left in the ground or dumped as waste.

This is what brought an end to Hill Annex as a state park. Or, more accurately, the current demand for low-grade iron ore dealt the final blow to a park that had always cost more to properly maintain than its keepers were willing to spend.

While it existed, Hill Annex visitors learned about Minnesota’s Iron Range history at two levels:

• Fossil hunts that told the story of the Iron Range in geologic time frames.
• Mine history tours focused on open pit iron mining in Minnesota and the miners who worked those mines from around 1910 through 1978.

It was a fascinating site. But it was always in danger of closing. And that finally happened in spring of 2024. It’s a huge loss history-wise, but not a surprise.

Keep reading to understand why this park was important and glimpse the mining history it once preserved.

The Hill Annex story is the story of Minnesota’s Iron Range

Northeastern Minnesota has long exported its natural wealth to the rest of the country and the world. It still does.

First came the Voyageurs seeking furs, particularly beaver pelts to make fashionable hats for men. But political tension rose along the Canada/USA border while the supply of local fur dwindled. In response, the Voyageurs moved farther north.

Loggers came later, following the remaining forests through Minnesota’s Lake Country.

As soon as the trees began to fall, the first prospectors and miners began to arrive.

Those early prospectors followed the illusory promise of gold. Failing in that pursuit, they left. But, as the loggers cut the last trees in the northern forest, a new group of prospectors arrived. Prospectors seeking iron ore.

By the time the northern forests were gone and the logging camps closed, iron mines were already reshaping the physical and cultural landscape of northern Minnesota.

At Hill Annex State Park, visitors learned about this history at an actual mine that remained pretty much as it was when operating.

Hill Annex history

A long narrow band of very high-quality iron ore runs through northeastern Minnesota in an area called the Mesabi Range. It’s part of a larger iron range that runs through much of the region, but the Mesabi Range was the heart of northern Minnesota mining.

Although the presence of iron-bearing rock was noted earlier, 1890 is generally cited as when iron ore was “discovered” on the Mesabi Range. The first lease for mineral exploration at Hill Annex came shortly thereafter, in 1892. It took another decade before mining began, but when it did, it began in a big way.

Hundreds of mines have operated on Minnesota’s Iron Range. But Hill Annex was one of the most productive. Over the mine’s life it produced 63 million tons of iron ore, making it the state’s sixth largest producer.

By the 1960s, mine in Minnesota was focused on producing taconite pellets (a heavily-processed iron product made from a type of low-grade ore), not the natural ore Hill Annex produced. Although expensive to produce, taconite’s consistent size and quality led steel mills to prefer it even over high-grade natural ore.

Given the situation, the Hill Annex Mine abruptly shut down in 1978. It seems the shutdown itself happened quickly, with ore left on conveyor belts and tools sitting where last used. It’s as if as the last shift ended, someone cut the power and everyone just walked away.

I’ve been unable to find stories about that day. Most employees at Hill Annex apparently left their last shift not knowing they wouldn’t return. However, they must have feared that day was coming, as mines across the Iron Range were shutting down or on the verge of doing so.

The mine becomes a park

An old mine is an expensive liability. Once closed, owners Jones and Laughlin Steel needed to figure out what to do with it.

One option was to give it away and let someone else deal with it.

Thus, the mine, its buildings, and most remaining equipment were “sold” to the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (an independent governmental organization that is a state agency today) for $1. And the IRRRB opened up their newly purchased mine for public tours.

Significant buildings on the site were listed on the National Register of Historic Places In 1986.

That listing includes seven contributing buildings and four structures from the period between 1912 and 1957:

• • Buildings
    • • Laboratory (1930)
      • Mine manager’s office (1930)
      • Railroad equipment repair shop (1930)
      • Heavy media plant (1953)
      • Frame truck repair shop (1919)
      • Quonset repair shop (1930)
      • Calumet Community Club (1915)
  • Other structures
    • • Prep section (1953)
      • Conveyor belt (1945 or later)
      • Wooden water tower (1919)
      • Tailings basin (1957)

It’s a fraction of the 48 buildings and structures on the site, but represents most of those located in the mine’s administrative area and nearby production facilities.

In 1988 the site became a state park. It was transferred from the IRRRB to Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources in 1991.

Hill Annex Mine was an unusual state park

Most people think of state parks as places to experience nature. It’s where they go to hike, camp, canoe, and fish.

But visitors weren’t allowed to do any of those things at Hill Annex Mine State Park.

This was a different kind of park, one of the largest and most complex of a number of state parks established over the years to preserve places with historical significance.

Hill Annex Mine, like Soudan Underground Mine State Park, was created to help Minnesotans to learn state history right where it happened. Iron mining shaped northern Minnesota. Hill Annex Mine State Park let visitors see for themselves what an open pit mine looked like, how it operated, how mining changed over time, and learn about the people who lived and worked in Minnesota’s iron mines.

It wasn’t created to preserve a natural area, although woodlands eventually covered the tailings piles and wildlife was plentiful within the park. And, because of the dangers posed by a former industrial site, no one was allowed to freely roam through the woods, climb the tailings piles to enjoy the view, fish in the lake that formed in the pit, or set up a tent and spend the night. You could only experience the park through a guided tour.

But the park was an wonderfully odd visual wonderland that preserved an important part of Minnesota history. And the tours, led by people who had worked at the mine, were fascinating.

The Community Club became a museum

The park’s visitor center and excellent museum were inside what was once the Calumet Community Club.

The Hill Annex Mine built the Calumet Community Club about 1915 to serve as a gathering place for miners and the community. Early in its history, the Club also housed young mine engineers who didn’t have a house of their own. Apparently, the building also housed the mine’s laboratory and offices for the manager and engineers at some point.

Most of the Community Club building became the park’s museum. It told the story of iron ore mining in Minnesota and the people who came here to live and to work in those mines. That story came to life through a mix of signage and displays, historic photographs, artifacts, and period rooms representing offices, laboratories, and lodging from the building’s and community’s past.

A few of the exhibits in the museum at Hill Annex Mine State Park in 2018.

There’s some talk of saving or moving the building — or at least the museum, but the building seems unlikely to survive. While it would be easy enough to install many of the museum exhibits elsewhere, that also seems unlikely. But we can hope.

Check the bucket for size

Back outside, there were a couple things to see nearby, including a really big scoop right outside the Club house.

Very early in Hill Annex’s history, mine work was done mostly by hand. But it didn’t take long for the railroad to arrive and, when it did, huge steam shovels came on the scene.

Over time massive steam shovels were replaced by more modern ones. But all were used for the same thing: To strip off soil and rock covering the iron ore and scoop chunks of ore into rail cars or trucks.

These shovels came in a variety of sizes, with buckets that ranged from 4 to 10 cubic yards in capacity. This one falls in the middle. With a capacity of 6 cubic yards, it held about 12 tons of ore.

(If you took the mine tour, you got to see a whole shovel, not just the bucket.)

That “lake” is the mine pit

An overview at the end of the parking area provided a view into the mine pit – which is now a very deep lake.

Unfortunately, by my first visit in 2018 the viewing stand that used to be here wasn’t open anymore and the surrounding vegetation made it a little tough to see the lake. But you could see some of the historic buildings and other structures through a break in the trees.

We got a lot better look at that pit lake during the bus tour. But from here I could see that some of the mine’s historic buildings are right at the edge of the pit. A pit where rising water is destabilizing the surrounding land.

A bus tour was the only way to really see the park

I don’t think hiking or biking on your own was ever allowed due to the number of hazards remaining on this old industrial site. But once upon a time visitors could get out and walk around a little to get a better look at some of the site’s buildings. There was even a time when the bus took you way down into the pit. When the pit started to flood, they added a boat tour.

However, by the time I visited in 2018, a bus tour above the pit was the only option. Boat tours were long gone due to continued rising water and unstable slopes. We could only get out of the bus at a few designated overlooks and stops to learn about the various vintages of equipment and structures scattered all about. However, the bus did take us around enough of the site to get a decent look at the exterior of many buildings and various odd structures above the pit. We even got to wander around and go inside some old equipment parked near the edge of the pit — something that probably wasn’t possible a even year later due to rising water levels. And I learned so much!

Bus tours start behind the museum. They are conducted by former mine employees who are good story tellers and very knowledgeable about mining in general and this mine in particular.

Through the woods

The bus left from the Community Club/museum on a barely-there road through the woods.

It was hard to see at first, but the area around the Community Club used to be a neighborhood. It had a school and houses built for mine managers and engineers. (All buildings were moved or demolished over the years as the pit got closer and closer.)

(You can see where the mine pit begins just beyond the trees.)

Today it’s mostly filled with trees. But by looking closely, I could still spot old street lights, broken sidewalks, and other signs of the community that once called this site home.

The current forest came after the mine

Here, as in most places on the Mesabi Range, mining began only after all the timber was already gone. That made it easy to prospect for ore and to mine it. It also allowed railroad magnet James J. Hill to get a really good price on a no-longer-needed logging railroad. But when the mine opened, that old logging railroad made it cheap and easy to bring equipment in and ore out.

And trees would have been a nuisance. While much of the ore removed in the early days was so pure that it needed little processing, there was still a lot of excess rock and debris. Much of it, including lower-quality ore-bearing rock had to go somewhere.

That somewhere was massive tailings piles or “dumps.”

After it closed, Hill Annex served as a real-world lab for testing mine reforestation. (The best practices developed here were used in reclamation projects across Minnesota’s Iron Range.) That means some of the woodlands we passed through on our tour were purposely planted as part of those tests. The rest were the work of birds, squirrels, and the wind!

Stories tucked between the trees

On the tour, trees and brush alternately conceal and reveal an wide array of rusted signs, dilapidated buildings, disintegrating equipment, and long-abandoned vehicles and machinery. Sometimes equipment from different points in time end up together, like this electric locomotive resting in front of the conveyor that replaced it.

Most of the equipment in the park was sitting pretty much where it was left when the mine closed. However, a few things were moved around or even brought in from other mines to give a more complete picture of mining over the decades. This was particularly true of older equipment that would not have been in use anymore when Hill Annex closed in 1978.

One example of this was a steam drill and wooden tripod that sat along the road as a display.

Equipment like this would have been used for exploratory drilling in the mine’s early years. It would have been many years since Hill Annex used such basic equipment!

A water-filled pit and some big machinery

The next stop on our tour was a close-up look at the water-filled mine pit, various types of ore, and some very big mining equipment.

Children on my tour seemed to love playing with the chunks of ore, although I doubt they were impressed by the of varying qualities of ore on display!

All of this was located very near the water in the pit. As the water level continued to rise, this was probably the next area to flood. But, for the time being, it was still be accessible.

This was our turn-around point, but we spent quite a lot of time here learning about the pit, the lake, and some of that big machinery.

(The tour used to continue past this point. However, the road and most of the sights beyond were already under water in 2018.)

The pit lake

Northern Minnesota is lake country. But, amid its many natural lakes, the Iron Range also has a very large collection of abandoned mine pits that have filled with water and become lakes. The pit at Hill Annex is now one of these.

By 2020 the pit was at least 500 feet deep and ¾ of a mile across at its widest point. And the water was still rising.

It had not yet completely filled with water when I visited. However, it had reached the point where it had merged with neighboring pits to form a single body of water.

And the water was high enough to hide almost all evidence of the mining operation that created it.

Here’s a photo of the spot pictured above sometime before 2012:

(The section you see in my 2018 photo is just the top portion of the earlier image.)

What you see in these photos was the conveyor system that brought ore out of the mine pit.

A close look at some big machinery

There was still some big equipment on the slope above the water when I visited, although park staff was already thinking about how to move this very dead equipment out of the path of the rising water.

The mining equipment on display included a drill (used to create holes that could be packed with explosives to break up the ore deposit), a blasting shack (used by the blasting crew to hide when the explosives were set off), an electric shovel (to scoop up the blasted material), and a dump truck (to haul the ore away.)

Once the ore was broken up, it had to be collected and hauled out of the mine. That required large equipment!

The dump truck hauled material from the lower levels of the mine up to one of the loading stations. This one was probably from the 1950s.

The mine had several sizes of Marion shovels. These huge shovels stripped away dirt and boulders to uncover the iron ore. They also scooped up ore and dumped it into trucks. Over the decades, Hill Annex used a variety of these enormous shovels operating on various power sources. This one dates to the 1950s, but a variety of shovels were used throughout the mine’s history. (In the 1920s the mine’s steam shovels were so efficient they set a record for the speed and quantity of material they could remove in a given time period.)

The bucket by the visitor center comes from a shovel like this, but I don’t know how they compare in size.

In 2018 visitors could still go up into the cab of both the dump truck and the shovel to see what they look like inside — although they weren’t in the best condition after sitting outside, open to Minnesota weather, for decades!

The guts of the Marion shovel.

Ore processing overlook

Back on the bus, the tour took us past more abandoned equipment of various types. A lot of it, however, seemed to be part of the extensive conveyor system that linked the mine’s components together. It brought ore up from the mine. Once the ore reached to top, other conveyor belts moved it between various processing facilities and then on to a loading area or to a dump for waste material.

By the time I visited, much of the system was slowly rusting away in the brush.

The bus also took us to the top of a tailings pile. A tailings pile or dump is a big pile of waste rock and ore. And it is a great place to get an overview of a big area. This one provided a good view of an ore processing area.

This processing area was built in the 1940s, when lower quality ore required processing that was unnecessary in earlier years. (During its best years, the ore was dug out of the ground, given a wash, and shipped out as is. As the quality of the ore decreased over time, more and more processing was necessary to make it useable.)

The Heavy Media Plant, offices, workshops, and water tower

The last place the bus paused was near the administrative part of mining complex. Most of the buildings in this area were included on the National Register of Historic Places listing. However, we weren’t allowed to get out to take a closer look at any of them.

The bus went through this area very slowly, pausing in various spots to let us peer at the buildings through the window.

There was lots to see here, including the historic water tower, manager’s home/administrative offices, old vehicles and equipment, and the railroad equipment and truck repair garages.

Heavy media plant

Even into the 1940s the ore at Hill Annex was generally so pure that washing was the only processing needed before shipping it out.

However, as increasing amounts of lower-grade ore were mined, existing processing facilities were no longer adequate. The heavy media plant was added early in the 1950s to replace existing facilities.

The heavy media plant was used for two processes:

• Fine (very small) material was separated from waste rock using a gravity process called a Humphreys spiral.
• Larger material went through a sink and float process using liquid compounds (heavy media) to separate out undesirable material.

This was the last step in the process. Ore moved directly from the heavy media plant into rail cars that hauled it to Lake Superior. From there it was shipped to eastern steel mills.

At the same time, another conveyor system moved waste material out of the plant and dumped it in large tailings piles.

So many interesting things to see at the Heavy Media Plant, but we were stuck in the bus!

The railroad equipment repair garage

Once upon a time the tour bus drove into the rail equipment repair shop to give visitors a glimpse of this lost-in-time wonderland.

But not on my bus tour. By then the building had been boarded up and was permanently closed. However, I had visited a few days earlier and got to see it just before it closed.

Inside the railroad equipment repair garage

I toured Hill Annex Mine State Park twice during the same week in 2018. First on a private tour and then, a few days later, on the regular public tour. (Throughout this post I use photos from both tours, although most are from the regular park tour.)

The two tours were similar but for one major difference: By chance, my private tour was scheduled for the morning park staff were boarding up the Railroad Equipment Repair Garage to permanently close it. They were literally  boarding up the building while I toured it. Everyone was nice about it and several workers stopped to tell me stories about the building and the men who worked there. But they were also waiting for me to leave so they could finish sealing up the entrance!

I was lucky to get inside this building, if only briefly. And I am so grateful I had that opportunity. It was an amazing place and a photographer’s dream!

This industrial beauty was constructed in 1930 as a facility for maintaining the mine’s steam locomotives and other railroad equipment.

It was designed to allow even the company’s largest engines to pull right inside the building for maintenance and repairs. Large windows assured workers had lots of natural light. An unusual wood block floor, set end-grain up, both held up under heavy equipment and softened the blow when a tool or piece of machinery hit it. That assured delicate gears and other equipment weren’t damaged in an accidental fall.

Why preserving Hill Annex mattered

In 1990 DNR presented its first report on the new park. It began thus:

Hill Annex is not just another abandoned pit mine. It is a resource rich with the state’s geologic, cultural and mining heritage. Of the more than 400 open pit iron mines that dotted the northern Minnesota landscape, only six are still in operation. Most or all of those that are abandoned will eventually fill with water. Hill Annex provides a rare opportunity for visitors to experience first-hand, Minnesota’s open pit mining history. For this and the following reasons, Hill Annex merits status as a state park.

• • • • Settlements associated with the Hill Annex mine reflect a diverse mix of European cultures.
      • The mine represents a 60 year evolution of mining technology.
      • Hill Annex is the only abandoned open pit, natural ore mine with buildings intact.
      • Hill Annex is on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Not mentioned was the fact that Minnesota’s iron turned the USA into an industrial and military powerhouse. It put cars on the nation’s roads in the 1920s, struggled through the Depression, and then went full-out to assure the USA and our allies won World War II.

Iron mining, and particularly open pit mining, shaped the landscape and the people of northern Minnesota. The culture and ideals that formed here are still shape the region and the state as a whole. What happened here between the turn of the century and the 1960s still impacts us today. It may be subtle, but it’s there.

Hill Annex Mine State Park was a place to celebrate and learn from that complicated history and its aftermath.

Of course, by the time I visited in 2018, the mine was no longer the complete complex that became a state park in 1988. With a few exceptions, the remaining historic assets that made Hill Annex worth saving were rapidly decaying after many years of neglect. Without significant intervention, in another decade it would have become little more than a landscape of rusted-out equipment and dilapidated structures falling into heaps. Just another of many nearly forgotten old mining sites in northern Minnesota.

It’s always easy to let the past slip away as if it never existed. To forget who we are and how we got to where we are. But the past is seldom completely in the past. That’s especially true on the Iron Range, where cycles of boom and bust not only shape the economy, but the landscape itself. And now, as part of that cycle, this ode to Iron Range history is set to become an active mine again.

Hill Annex’s future is its past

When I first wrote this story five years ago, the future of Hill Annex Mine State Park was still a bit uncertain. The handwriting on the wall indicated the park was doomed, but there were still options to save at least some of it.

Preserving at least a few key features still seemed possible despite decades of neglect, rising water, historic assets drowning or simply deteriorating in the open air, limited staffing, limited park hours and activities, and the (legally required) diversion funds raised by the park into the state trust fund (instead of being invested in the park).

But there was always an elephant in the room when discussing Hill Annex: Mineral rights.

The site became a state park based on a requirement that it would revert to a mine again should mining the site ever become viable again. Maintaining a park (especially a park like this) is an expense. On the other hand, mineral leases bring in revenue. So, who wants to spend money on an expensive museum that could again become an active, revenue-generating mine?

Years of inaction sealed Hill Annex’s fate

Discussion of Hill Annex’s future remained stalled for years as the same stakeholders rehashed the same issues and their continually shrinking options. And then the two players who held the cards in this game – the Department of Natural Resources and state legislature – decided to find a way to move on.

Hill Annex will become an active mine again

Hill Annex didn’t reopen for Memorial Day weekend this year.

It will never reopen.

Changes in technology and growing demand have made low-grade iron ore valuable. And there’s still a lot of low-grade ore at Hill Annex. The tailings piles have plenty that’s generally easy to get at. But there’s also valuable material still in the ground below those piles of “waste” rock and ore. . .  and beneath the site’s historic buildings.

DNR and many in the community see nothing but dollar signs and high-paying jobs in the future. Both seem more focused on what mining used to be, than the reality of what it is today. But whatever actually happens at Hill Annex will surely bring in more money and jobs than a neglected state park that’s only open two days a week during a couple of months each summer and requires reserving a tour to see more than the museum.

Initial plans for scram mining on the site. That operates more like a gravel pit than a traditional iron mine; instead of digging into the earth, it would mine the site’s many tailings piles. Once useable ore has been extracted from the tailings piles, others talk about expanding the pit to get at the ore still in the ground.

While there’s some talk about moving the museum in the historic Calumet Community Clubhouse to another facility, it’s uncertain that will happen. On the other hand, it seems very certain that neither the clubhouse itself or the railroad repair garage will be preserved or relocated. The paleontologists that ran public fossil programs on the site are still working to preserve access to the areas they use, but that also seems unlikely to continue very long if current plans move forward.

We could have saved Hill Annex

In case you think the idea of preserving an entire mine and opening it up to visitors was never realistic, let me briefly introduce you to Ostrava, Czechia (the Czech Republic).

Ostrava is a gritty industrial city long famous for its steel mills. Under the Soviets it became even grittier as coal mines, coke plants, and, of course, steel mills, produced materials for Russia without any concern for community impacts or pollution. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, demand for most things produced here vanished. While the steel mill and a few of other factories continued to operate, much of the enormous mining and industrial infrastructure was simply abandoned.

Faced with a polluted industrial wasteland, Ostrava began reimagining its future.

With assistance in the form of many millions of dollars of European Union funding, the Lower Vitkovice (Dolní Vítkovice) industrial area (once a combination coal mining, coke production and iron facilities) now boasts a coal mining museum (complete with a coal mine tour), an observation tower and restaurant on top of a blast furnace (you can tour the furnace too), a fabulous convention center and music hall in what was once a gas storage tank, a technology museum in a former power plant, outdoor art and concert venues, and more.

Not all of Ostrava’s old mining and industrial facilities have been repurposed and opened to the public, but a lot of them have been — including much of what you see here. 

It shows what vision, commitment, and a lot of money can do.

Once upon a time, Minnesota could have done something similar at Hill Annex. And we could have done it for a lot more reasonable amount of money had we stuck with it from the start. And maybe, just maybe, it would have been so cool and drawn enough visitors that we would have decided this particular piece of Iron Range history was worth protecting from further mining.

But we didn’t. And now the opportunity is gone.

Other places to learn about Minnesota mining history

Hill Annex was unique because the museum was an actual open pit mine with all the structures and equipment in place. However, it’s not the only place where you can learn about mining in Minnesota past and present.

The Soudan Underground Mine

Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park includes several above-ground buildings, a fabulous guided tour of the former underground mine, and camping and hiking along the scenic shores of Lake Vermilion.

Underground iron mining wasn’t common in Minnesota, so this is a very different, but related, bit of history from that of Hill Annex. And, like Hill Annex, this is another very expensive to maintain park with a wonderful mine tour. And it’s located just off one of Minnesota’s most beautiful lakes, making it very much worth the trip even if you aren’t really crazy about mines.

This is another site that is probably at risk of closing, as it is very expensive and difficult to maintain and not part of DNR’s core mission. Research facilities once used some of the space and helped keep the site viable. Unfortunately, they have moved out with no other potential tenants in sight.

Above ground facilities can be visited any time the park is open. Reservations are required to go down in the mine. (If you aren’t claustrophobic, you want to go down into the mine: It’s so cool.) Check the Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine website for more info on hours and reservations. Note: The underground tour at Soudan Underground Mine is temporarily closed due to flooding in June 2024. It’s hoped that tours will be available again before the end of July. But that seems optimistic. The rest of the park, including above-ground mine facilities, is open.

The Minnesota Discovery Center

This began decades ago as sort of a mining history amusement park called Ironworld in Chisholm. Or, at least that’s what I understood it to be.

Along the way it became the The Minnesota Discovery Center (The Museum of the Iron Range). After years of people telling me how fabulous it is, I finally got there a couple of years ago. And was blown away.

The Minnesota Discover Center tells much the same story as Hill Annex Mine State Park, but covers a much broader base. There’s no mine site to explore, but this amazing and highly interactive museum finds other ways to bring history to life. Its mining and labor history exhibit is particularly good and makes this one of the best Minnesota history museums I’ve found.

It also has an excellent genealogical research center with records that cover far more than just immigrants to the the Iron Range. (We found records for my grandmother here that we’d never found anywhere else. And I doubt she ever got very far north of Hinckley.)

This is a museum well worth traveling for.

The Minnesota Museum of Mining

I know nothing about the Minnesota Museum of Mining in Chisholm, but it looks interesting.

Mine overlooks

Overlook options seem to change regularly as mining activity moves around on a site. Here’s two that look promising, but I have not visited either.

• The Hull Rust Mine View in Hibbing provides views of a working mine in Hibbing. It was recently redone and seems to be getting rave reviews.
• Leonidas Overlook in Eveleth offers views of up to 15 miles over mine county.

Looking for a great road trip near the Mesabi Range? Drive the Edge of the Wilderness National Scenic Byway from Grand Rapids to Effie. It’s lovely any time of year and outstanding in the fall.

Websites and other resources

Minnesota’s mining history includes a complex and convoluted story of how immigrant communities shaped northern Minnesota’s landscape and culture while feeding the nation’s steel mills. While there is little good information online about Hill Annex itself, there are resources that paint the broader picture of iron mining and Iron Range history. There are also documents related to legislation, DNR recommendations, and park planning related to Hill Annex Mine State Park.

A few of the more interesting resources I consulted are listed below.

The Mesabi Range is the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary home of the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe), who shared it with the Dakota for many generations.  

See more photos of Hill Annex Mine State Park on CindyCarlsson.com.