An update on Ironworld

Business North reports on the latest news regarding the former Ironworld, currently shut down and entering reorganization. Yours truly briefly enters the scuffle.

My opinion is short and sweet: The unique history and culture of the Iron Range demands preservation. Ironworld (by this or any other name) is in the public good and a variety of funding sources should be involved in bolstering and reorienting the facility. The funding model should keep the facility financially sustainable and focused on the core mission of Iron Range historical and cultural interpretation, especially for area students and specifically in the preservation of an irreplaceable collection of Iron Range records and archives. Anything else is good, but extra, and subject to increased financial scrutiny. I think the Iron Range gets one more chance at getting the Ironworld situation fixed and then, that’s it. Let’s get it right.

Comments

  1. I agree. We were in Hibbing on vacation and I got to take my kids through the exhibits at Ironworld, to include the great model houses you could walk through to show how people lived on a mining location, as well as learn about the CCC.

    Iron Range history is unique and worth preserving and promoting.

  2. I would like to see Ironworld/Discovery Center link up with the Minnesota Historical Society, as a sponsored museum.

    This could serve our need to remember and preserve the history of this region.

    As the state’s early history was taught in the 1950’s, much was said about furs, timber, and wheat. Oxcarts and railroads.

    Neglected were Native Americans who were driven off the land by European-American settlement, and Immigrants who mined Soudan, Mesabi, and Cuyuna Range iron ore from 1884 to World War II.

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