Minneapolis was the home of the regional offices of the US Bureau of Mines, an organization founded in 1910 as part of the Department of the Interior. Bureau of Mines was founded in the wake […]
history under ground
Minnesota
Bureau of Mines Research Center
Cramer Tunnel
Northern Minnesota
Cramer Tunnel connected LTV Steel’s taconite mine and concentrator with its ore dock at Taconite Harbor. It served from 1957 to 2001, when LTV declared bankruptcy for the last time.
DMIR Dock Five
Duluth, MN
On your left you see Dock 6, retrofitted with conveyor belts, swarming with hard men and cold trains, bathed in orange light and smelling of taconite, oil, and sweat. On the right is a stripped, dark, empty, motionless chunk of steel jutting into Lake Superior, an island in so many ways. Read on to find out where the good days went.
DMIR Roundhouse and Railworks
Two Harbors, MN
Climbing that ladder let me see through the steam, by the orange light of the sunset dumping through the sooted skylights like the shop lights on the dead crane. It had been a while since it lifted a locomotive off its chasis, but the smell of grease was still strong enough to lubricate my sinuses
Draining Zenith City
Duluth, MN
The underground history of some of Duluth’s most notable sewers, drains, and substreet creeks.
Duluth & Iron Range Dock Six
Two Harbors, MN
A Poem
In nineteen-oh-nine when the winds blew colder,
Nine-hundred and twenty feet long…
Duluth Armory
Duluth, MN
This armory was built in 1915 for the 3rd Regiment of the Minnesota National Guard. During the World Wars, it was a place where troops would train and muster, and where equipment was stored. Occasionally, […]
Duluth’s Lost Silver Mine
Duluth, MN
In mid-1880s, a few men began tunneling under downtown Duluth looking for a fortune. Now there’s no trace of their labor under the Point of Rocks, is there?
DWP’s Short Line Tunnel Ely’s Peak Duluth, MN
It started as a rumor, then I heard it over and over–there was an abandoned train tunnel outside Duluth.
Fergus Falls State Hospital
Fergus Falls, MN
Why write, who cares? The door asked… I guess I just didn’t have an answer. I’ll keep doing my thing, I thought, and you keep doing yours. Now, how best to capture the fingernail scratches around this padded room’s peep hole?
Ford’s Twin Cities Plant & Sand Mines
Saint Paul, MN
On December 16th, 2011, the last Ford Ranger standard truck left the assembly line and paint shop and not long afterward the doors were chained and locked. Then it was my turn.