Presentation to feature unique history of the “Gunflint Iron Range”

Paulson Mine, photo courtesy Superior National Forest

A free event sponsored by the Friends of the Boundary Waters on October 18 will give you a chance to meet Ian Kimmer, our new Northern Minnesota Program Director, and learn about mining past and present. Lee Johnson, Forest Archaeologist from the Superior National Forest, will give a presentation on the Paulson Mine from the 1800s, and Betsy Daub, the Friends’ Policy Director, will finish the night giving an update on current mine proposals.

Details

Tuesday, October 18 – 6:30 p.m.
University of St. Thomas
Murray-Herrick Campus Center, Room 304 (map)

Agenda

• 6:30 – 7:15 p.m. Meet Ian Kimmer
• 7:15 – 8:15 p.m. Paulson Mine presentation and question-and-answer
• 8:15 – 8:30 p.m. Mining update and questions by Betsy Daub

Presentation: “The Paulson Mine and the Port Arthur Duluth and Western Railroad:  Collapse of the Gunflint Iron Range”

Following the Treaty of 1854 with local Ojibwa bands, hundreds of mineral prospectors flooded to the remote reaches of Northeastern Minnesota in the hopes of striking mineral riches.  By the late 1880′s, with the hopes of precious metal riches diminishing, prospectors turned their attention to the Vermillion and Mesabi iron deposits which this area has become famous for.

But few people realize that a similar effort was initiated on a lesser know body of iron ore located near the present BWCAW boundary west of Gunflint Lake.  Come and learn about the Gunflint Iron Range, John Anderson Paulson’s iron mine, the fabled Port Arthur to Duluth railroad, and the Financial Panic of 1893.

One Comment

• History of the Gunflint Iron Range – MN Field Notes | Minnesota Field Notes says:

  September 27, 2011 at 8:56 am

  [...] Murray-Herrick Campus Center, Room 304 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.  Check out the event web site to see other presentations that evening.  The event is free and open to the public. Category: [...]