Part One: The History
Once a wild paradise of clear lakes and pine forest, mining and logging transformed the Iron Range into a dingy desert of huge open pit holes and scraggly second growth woods and stumps. After just 50 years of intensive mining, Minnesota's reserves of high-grade iron ore, once thought inexhaustible, were nearly spent. Meanwhile, the Great Depression had idled America's industries and forced Minnesota's iron miners into work camps and soup lines. Demand for steel was absolutely flat. A workforce of 12,000 miners in the 1920s shrank to less than 2,000 in the 1930s.
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Part Two: The Troubles
The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board is either Minnesota's least-effective state agency, or its least understood. The agency takes credit for thousands of new jobs in northeastern Minnesota through investments in communities and businesses. But the IRRRB suffers from a tarnished reputation, based largely on a some high profile bad investments in the 1980s and recurring criticism from the media and politicians.
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Part Three: The Future
The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board evolved into its present form 20 years ago to insure life after taconite in northeast Minnesota, a purpose many "rangers" say they support. But in recent years the agency's reputation has been linked more to political turmoil and failed investments. Local business owners say the IRRRB has rarely sought their advice or responded to their needs. They're holding out hope for change, though, thanks to new people onboard and a potential resurgence in the industry that started it all: mining.
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