In 2001, I was working at the Hibbing Daily Tribune when LTV Steel closed its Hoyt Lakes taconite mine. In 25 years, the wound to the Iron Range has yet to heal. But it wasn’t the first.
In today’s column (gift link), I quantify just how much the iron and steel industry has changed in my lifetime. I searched for a simple number that would help explain why the Range remains economically out of sorts. What I found in comparing labor statistics was that, since 1976, the U.S. iron and steel industries shed 83% of their collective jobs.
They did all of this while still producing the same amount of steel.
That’s a stunning fact that quite easily explains why these decades have been uniquely hard on the Iron Range and Rust Belt. It should also explain why I continue to advocate for more robust economic diversification rather than reliance on the return of past mining employment. Those jobs simply won’t come back.
But in surveying the changing iron and steel industry we can learn things that might be applicable to our situation. We might also move beyond simple slogans and rhetoric into a better understanding of where regions and states like ours might go in the future.
Read “American steel transition will require ingenuity – not just patriotism,” in the Tuesday, July 21, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
