Posts Tagged With: Tower MN

Britt, MN. August 24, 2017

We played hookey from summer camp today. The lesson on loons and on lake ecology were well recommended but one of our goals for this trip was to visit two state parks: Bear Head Lake State Park and Lake Vermillion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park. Bear Head is a popular destination, despite its distance from the Twin Cities. It was a 60 minute drive for us from the Laurentian Environmental Center. The geology of the park reflects the glacial action ending about 12,000 years ago to form hills, lakes, and rocky landscape over the 4,000 acres of the park.

The Norberg Trail at Bear Head Lake State Park in northern Minnesota

Chris and I hiked the Norbert Lake Trail, a 3.5 mile loop that traversed numerous hiking terrains. We started out on a smooth, wide, well-marked trail with soft pine needles on the trail. The trail switched to a narrower, grassy trail under birch trees. But, the last two-thirds of the trail was on rocky, hilly ground that slowed us considerably. Those rocks translated into a hike of 1.75 hours to traverse 3.5 miles.

Seen along the Norberg Lake Trail at Bear Head Lake State Park in northern Minnesota

We passed two lakes, Norberg and Bear Head. Some of the red and white pines were quite tall; they were too small to cut in the late 1800s when wholesale logging decimated the area and have had 140 years to grow. Small bushes, ferns and flowers occupied the undergrowth. Deciduous trees are starting to fill in.

Lunch was at the “Good Ol’ Days Bar and Grill” in Tower MN. Food was quite tasty but Chris was a little nervous as it took a while for the food to be served and we had a 2 PM tour at the Soudan Underground Mine. But we were able to enjoy the meal and drive to the mine with plenty of time before the tour started. The bar has been in business for 13 years but its roots pre-date Prohibition. They have a little paper “broadsheet” that re-publishes old news tidbits from the Tower Soudan area. The old newspapers seemed to delight in listing the mis-deeds of local Finns.

The mine tour was excellent; while the young man never worked here, he has conducted local research to go along with his geology degree. The mine is in Soudan, the town of Tower was the business-residential center for the area. Together their current population is less than 1,000. (The broadsheet listed above reprinted one article from 1893 that enumerated 22 bars in Tower.)

Soudan was named after the African country Sudan as being the opposite (heat) from the extreme cold of the Tower-Soudan area. Tower was named after Charlemagne Tower, a Pennsylvania industrialist who financed the initial prospecting and mining here. Tower’s accumulation of land seems to have been fraught with illegalities, particularly in regard to the acquiring of small plots of land owned by Native Americans. Eventually he sold out to eastern steel interests leading to ownership by U.S. Steel.

The tower hoist above the Soudan Mine shaft

The Soudan mine is considered the oldest, the deepest, and the richest in Minnesota. Its best days were in the late 1800s as its ore was extremely rich in iron and could be used directly in steel furnaces. However, it was expensive to mine given that its ore seams have to be mined underground, and its use lessened but did not die out until 1962. The iron ore here had a percentage of oxygen in it that was crucial to the operation of Bessemer blast furnaces. As the last Bessemer furnace was closed in 1962, so was this iron ore mine. The Mesabi region of Minnesota, south of here around Hibbing, which utilizes open-pit mining of low-grade ore to convert into taconite pellets, surpassed the output of the Soudan mine in the early 1900s and continues to be the largest U.S. source of iron ore.

Charlemagne Tower, despite the questionable land purchases, innovated in that he paid his first workers twice the wages they were making in Michigan mines, promoted home ownership over company rented housing, and encouraged local shopping over company stores, all grievances held by miners prior to this time. The Soudan mine is located in extremely hard rock that provided safer working environments for underground mines with low rates of water infiltration. These circumstances led to high miner loyalty and good wages; not perfect conditions but better than that found in comparable mines of the day.

Our carriage awaited us 2,341 feet below the ground at Soudan Mine

Our day included going underground in two steel cages, down to a depth of 2341 feet below the surface, over 700 feet below sea level. Our cages descended at a rate of close to ten miles per hour. Once down at stage 27, we rode 3/4 of a mile in a tracked car that resembled a Disney ride with sharp turns and minimal lighting. At the end of the ride, we walked and climbed around the mining area as it was when it closed in 1962. Another part of the tour described the working conditions of the late 1800s when candle light was used–after the workers walked the 3/4 mile to the work area in pitch blackness.

Our canoe ride on Arrowhead Lake in northern Minnesota

After the tour we returned to summer camp and went for a half hour canoe ride before dinner. The weather was perfect; calm, sunny, 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Dinner was tater tot hot dish. After dinner was a presentation on bats; it seems currently there is an effort around the U.S. to educate people about the positive benefits of bats.

Ed and Chris. Aug. 25