The Minnesota Discovery Center, formerly known as Ironworld Discovery Center and originally as the Iron Range Interpretive Center, opened in the 1977 outside

Chisholm, Minnesota Chisholm is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 4,775 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city has been called "The Heart of the Iron Range" due to its location i ...

, United States. It showcases northeastern

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

's "history and future" and includes a museum, entertainment venue, research center and library, and a park. The site offers various community programs and events including

Polka Polka is a dance style and genre of dance music in originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though generally associated with Czech and Central European culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the ...

fests, concerts, and fairs. The property includes a memorial to

Rudy Perpich Rudolph George Perpich Sr. (born Rudolph George Prpić; June 27, 1928 September 21, 1995) was an American politician who served as the governor of Minnesota from 1976 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor ...

and holds historical documents and artifacts related to mining in the

Iron Range The Iron Range is collectively or individually a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by the Giants ...

History

The museum complex opened in 1977 as the Iron Range Interpretive Center with 34 exhibits and was renamed in 1984 as Ironworld USA. In 2009 it became the Minnesota Discovery Center. The Minnesota Discovery Center is operated by a non-profit organization called the Ironworld Development Corporation (IDC). The organization was established in 2003 to manage the facility and transition from being a state-run entity. The transition was completed in 2007. It was built to celebrate the immigrants who built Minnesota's Iron Range mining region, including

Italians Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...

Finns Finns or Finnish people (, ) are a Baltic Finns, Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these cou ...

, and

Yugoslavs Yugoslavs or Yugoslavians ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Jugoslaveni/Jugosloveni, Југославени/Југословени; ; ) is an identity that was originally conceived to refer to a united South Slavic people. It has been used in two connotations: ...

. It was supposed to draw tourists from around the state and other parts of the U.S., but in the late 1990s was struggling to live up to attendance expectations. Due to shifting ground on the property with

mine shaft Shaft mining or shaft sinking is the action of excavating a mine shaft from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. Shallow shafts, typically sunk for civil engineering projects, differ greatly in execution method from ...

s beneath it, the tourist attraction faced a $2 million to $7 million cost in 2004 for filling and shoring up its foundation or to do complete reconstruction. It is located on the old Glen Mine property where there are abandoned mine shafts. The Center include a 1920s trolley that travels along a "picturesque" railway that winds around the Pillsbury mine pit and Glen mine disembarking at Wilpen Train Depot. There is a renovated 1905 Hill's Finn Boarding House. There is also the Pellet Pete 19 hole mini-golf course. The museum has two floors of "exhibits about labor history,

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...

and other aspects of the industrial and cultural history of the region," including the

taconite Taconite () is a variety of banded iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name ''taconyte'' was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865– ...

mining process and the evolution of the industry on the Iron Range.

References

External links

Minnesota Discovery Center

History

References

External links

See also