The Mineview in the Sky overlooking Virginia, Minnesota, seen here in 2010, will close permanently after a special event this Sunday. A new route for Highway 53 (involving a bridge that will eventually span this view) will shut off the mine view’s source of traffic. (PHOTO: Roy Luck, Flickr CC)
With peak fall colors upon us, this weekend offers a historic opportunity for travelers to Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. “Mineview in the Sky” is a scenic overlook situated upon a mine dump between Eveleth and Virginia. Due to proposed new mining by Cliffs’ United Taconite plant which is forcing the relocation of Highway 53, “Mineview in the Sky” will close permanently after an event on Sunday, Oct. 4.
The popular tourist stop-off point includes a gift shop and two huge retired mining haul trucks that kids in the back of passing cars have pointed at for generations. When I was a kid we used to “go up town” sometimes on Highway 53. I remember scanning for the yellow truck from from the back seat of my family’s 1982 Cutlass Cruiser station wagon with wood grain paneling. I can still feel the thrill of imaging how that big truck got way up there.
Well, the mine trucks will be scrapped and the gift shop removed. Mineview in the Sky is no more. For its fixation on nostalgia, the Iron Range doesn’t have much sentimentality to spare. But we can still visit on Sunday and take one last picture of the pit below and the three towns that you can see from this one spot up in the sky.
The sign reads: “The End is Here!” followed by “Please come celebrate our final day of Mineview with a barbecue, games, reminiscing and fun.” The party starts at 11 a.m. and the poster says it will end at “????,” which could mean many different things given my experience with party posters on the Iron Range.
I’ll be out of town that day, but I am comforted there there are more dumps overlooking other pits all over the region. Perhaps I will climb one of those.
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