It has also been a solid base for infrastructure throughout the nation.
Now an historian is capturing that past so that the Iron Range will take its rightful place in the history books.
Historian Pamela Brunfelt will admit...it was quite by accident she became a range expert, after discovering a past mayor in the town of Crosby was communist.
"I was intrigued that there was a communist mayor elected anywhere in Minnesota, but on the Iron Range it was particularly interesting because it was one of the hot beds of radicalism," said Brunfelt.
A life time ranger her self, Brunfelt now teaches at Vermilion College in Ely.
Thursday she held a Lunch and Learn session in Chisholm, sponsored by the Minnesota Humanities Center.
The goal: reiterate the importance of the Iron range on our Nations History.
"Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers in New York and Chicago and Minneapolis...the ore that contributed to that structure, to the infrastructure, came from this place," said Casey DeMarais, Director of Programs with Minnesota Humanities Center.
Even though Northeastern Minnesota is home to the largest iron range in the country, and also the only known natural deposit of manganese in the county, in all her years of teaching Brunfelt says she has seen only one American history textbook that mentions the Minnesota Iron Range.
"It's one of the mysteries to me and it's a question I ask all the time of other people, and I have not yet found an explanation as to why this story has disappeared from American history text books," said Brunfelt.
Brunfelt says "ranger pride" comes from the work it took to build the range and sustain a country; a history Brunfelt says must be remembered by the country.
"This was an incredibly important region of the country and remains so. We are the only source of domestic ore left in the United States," said Brunfelt.
Brunfelt has been a part of several documentaries, including her most recent from last year "Iron Range: Minnesota Building America."
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