Two Harbors’ Little Engine That Could

By Ken Buehler

It’s the reason we are here. The red earth the Native American First Nation people used for dyes and coloring was abundant in northeastern Minnesota. It was of little other use to them. But for America it was the raw material of a revolution that was seeing wood and iron replaced by steel. The huge blast furnaces in Pittsburgh and across the Lehigh Valley were insatiable. After the Civil War the search for fresh deposits of iron ore became a national obsession.

In 1865 a gold rush brought prospectors to Lake Vermillion in northeastern Minnesota. The gold was of a quality and quantity that was unworthy of the rush. But what they did find instead was hematite, the good stuff. It assayed at 69.9% pure iron ore.