The Mesabi Iron Range is a mining district and mountain range in northeastern Minnesota following an elongate trend containing large deposits of iron ore. It is the largest of four major iron ranges in the region collectively known as the Iron Range of Minnesota. First described in 1866, it is the chief iron ore mining district in the United States. The district is located largely in Itasca and Saint Louis counties. It has been extensively worked since 1892, and has seen a transition from high-grade direct shipping ores through gravity concentrates to the current industry exclusively producing iron ore (taconite) pellets. Production has been dominantly controlled by vertically integrated steelmakers since 1901, and therefore is dictated largely by US ironmaking capacity and demand.
Taconite is a variety of banded iron formation, an iron-bearing sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name taconyte was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865–1923) – son of Newton Horace Winchell, the Minnesota state geologist – during their pioneering investigations of the Precambrian Biwabik Iron Formation of northeastern Minnesota. He believed the sedimentary rock sequence hosting the iron-formation was correlative with the Taconic orogeny of New England, and referred to the unfamiliar and as-yet-unnamed iron-bearing rock as the 'taconic rock' or taconyte.
The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway (DM&IR), informally known as the Missabe Road, was a railroad operating in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin that used to haul iron ore and later taconite to the Great Lakes ports of Duluth and Two Harbors, Minnesota. Control of the railway was acquired on May 10, 2004, by the Canadian National Railway (CN) when it purchased the assets of Great Lakes Transportation.
Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carriers operating on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. Freighters typically have a long, narrow hull, a raised pilothouse, and the engine located at the rear of the ship.
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is an American steel manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. They specialize in the mining, beneficiation, and pelletizing of iron ore, as well as steelmaking, including stamping and tooling. The company was the world's 25th-largest steel producer and the third-largest in the United States in 2022. It is the largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America.
The Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company operated the world's largest limestone quarry, which is located near Rogers City in Presque Isle County, Michigan. It was formed and organized in 1910; however, production did not begin until 1912. Ownership of the quarry has changed a number of times, but it is still one of the largest producers of limestone in the United States. The quarry was inextricably interlinked with lake shipping and railroad transportation.
The Port of Cleveland is a bulk freight and container shipping port at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River on Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is the third-largest port in the Great Lakes and the fourth-largest Great Lakes port by annual tonnage. Over 20,000 jobs and $3.5 billion in annual economic activity are tied to the roughly 13 million tons of cargo that move through Cleveland Harbor each year.
The American Steamship Company (ASC) is an American transportation company that operates a fleet of self-unloading vessels in the Great Lakes. The company is currently owned by Rand Logistics Inc.
The American Ship Building Company was the dominant shipbuilder on the Great Lakes before the Second World War. It started as Cleveland Shipbuilding in Cleveland, Ohio in 1888 and opened the yard in Lorain, Ohio in 1898. It changed its name to the American Ship Building Company in 1900, when it acquired Superior Shipbuilding, in Superior, Wisconsin; Toledo Shipbuilding, in Toledo, Ohio; and West Bay Shipbuilding, in West Bay City, Michigan. With the coming of World War I, the company also acquired Buffalo Dry Dock, in Buffalo, New York; Chicago Shipbuilding, in Chicago, Illinois; and Detroit Shipbuilding, in Wyandotte, Michigan. American Shipbuilding ranked 81st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
The Oliver Iron Mining Company was a mining company operating in Minnesota, United States. It was one of the most prominent companies in the early decades of mining on the Mesabi Range. As a division of U.S. Steel, Oliver dwarfed its competitors—in 1920, it operated 128 mines across the region, while its largest competitor operated only 65.
The Robert S. Pierson is a bulk carrier built for and operated on the North American Great Lakes.
MV American Century is a very large diesel-powered Lake freighter owned and operated by the American Steamship Company. This vessel was built in 1981 at Bay Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and included self-unloading technology.
MV American Courage is a diesel-powered lake freighter owned and operated by Grand River Navigation. This vessel was built in 1979 at Bay Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and included self-unloading technology.
The Pickands Mather Group is an American company which provides shipping of coal and other bulk commodities, and the purchase, sale, and marketing of bulk coal. Founded in 1883 as Pickands Mather & Company, it once had the second largest shipping fleet on the Great Lakes in the 1910s and 1920s. The company was purchased by the Diamond Shamrock Corporation in 1968, which in turn sold it to the Moore-McCormack Resources in 1973. Moore-McCormack sold Pickands Mather's mining interests to Cleveland-Cliffs in 1986. Moore-McCormack then spun off the Interlake Steamship Company to James Barker and Paul R. Tregurtha in 1987. Pickands Mather was sold to a management group in 1992, and continues to operate as a private company.
MV Roger Blough is a ship built in 1972 by American Ship Building Company in Lorain, Ohio. She serves as a lake freighter on the Great Lakes. The ship is owned by Great Lakes Fleet, Inc. and is named for the former chairman of U.S. Steel, Roger Blough.
The Frank C. Ball was an American Bulk carrier that was built by the Great Lakes Engineering Works of Ecorse, Michigan, for the Globe Steamship Company of Duluth, Minnesota. She was launched on December 9, 1905, as hull #14. She was powered by a 1,700 horsepower triple expansion steam engine and fueled by two coal-fired Scotch marine boilers. Even though Ball was built in 1905, she only entered service in 1906.
The MV Kaye E. Barker is a self-discharging lake freighter owned and operated by the Interlake Steamship Company. She was originally built as the SS Edward B. Greene, and was later renamed SS Benson Ford before being sold to Interlake and named the Kaye E. Barker. It primarily hauls hematite pellets, stone, and coal across the North American Great Lakes.
Michipicoten is a self-discharging lake freighter owned and operated by Canadian shipping firm Lower Lakes Towing of Port Dover, Ontario. Michipicoten primarily hauls taconite from Marquette, Michigan, to the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She has a capacity of 22,300 tons, a speed of 12 knots (14 mph), and a length of 689 feet 6 inches (210.2 m).
James L. Kuber is a self-unloading articulated barge owned by Rand Logistics and operated by Grand River Navigation. The vessel was originally named Reserve and was constructed as a bulk carrier, being launched in 1952. It was converted to a barge in 2007.
Edward Belden Greene was an American banking, mining, and steel company executive. He joined the Cleveland Trust Company in 1900, and by 1914 was a vice president. He later was a director and chairman of its executive committee, and served on state and federal emergency credit and banking organizations during the Great Depression. He left in 1933 to become chairman of the board of directors of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Mining Company. He oversaw the purchase of Corrigan, McKinney Steel, and later its sale.
