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Don’t give me that look; a MN fishing opener plea
Near my house there’s a place called the Twin Bridges. As advertised, it’s a pair of small bridges along Itasca County Highway 336 spanning a winding section of the Prairie River right where it feeds into Crooked Lake. It’s known locally as a place where, shortly after ice-out, you can angle for fish emerging from their icy winter…
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Essar Steel secures funds to finish Nashwauk project
This item is cross-posted with my Up North Report blog at StarTribune.com. The Star Tribune’s Dee Depass reports that Essar Steel has secured $450 million in new private financing, and is injecting $300 million of its own money into finishing its long-awaited Nashwauk taconite plant. Here on the ground north of Nashwauk, the project has…
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Climate change lands Hibbing on front of NY Times
Hibbing, Minnesota, usually only makes the New York Times in stories about its hometown son Bob Dylan or, once every decade or so, for being a hardscrabble mining town on the rocks. So how exciting to see the town on the front page of the New York Times for something else: increasing average temperatures since…
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2016 promises expansion of Cross-Range Expressway
Over the years I’ve written a great deal about the cross-Range expressway, a vision of a four-lane highway that spans the entirety of the Mesabi Iron Range. It was the furtive promise of highway officials back during the Lyndon Johnson Administration, largely unrealized because of massive funding and land-rights issues. In summary: it’s hard to…
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Uneasy feelings at Saturday’s #MN08 DFL convention
This story is cross-posted with my Up North Report blog at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. This Saturday at 9 a.m., DFL delegates from Minnesota’s Eight Congressional District will hold their biannual convention at the Nashwauk Rec Center on the western Mesabi Iron Range. U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL-MN8) is unopposed in seeking endorsement for re-election.…
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Range Shrine Circus opens this Friday
UPDATE: The circus is this weekend in Hibbing! Click on the poster below to find the pre-sale ticket locations, ranging from Grand Rapids in the west and Virginia in the east. The 31st Range Shrine Circus will take place Friday, May 2 through Sunday, May 4, 2014 at the Hibbing Memorial Building arena. This beloved…
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Civil War treasure from Trampled by Turtles
Trampled by Turtles is poised to roll out a new album “Wild Animals” on July 15, but before then I have to point out this 2012 recording of Trampled by Turtles singing “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down,” a classic by The Band penned by Robbie Robertson. This was a found treasure for me,…
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Shared Iron Range high school plan falling apart
A major effort to build a shared high school for three Iron Range school districts is on the ropes after two of the three affected community school boards backed out of the plan in separate votes last night. Virginia and Eveleth-Gilbert school boards voted to end their involvement in the co-location of a new school…
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Husk of Nashwauk gas station finally to be razed
More than eight years after the fire that charred and closed a downtown Nashwauk gas station, city officials expect the building to be razed this Wednesday, April 30. The owner of the building has fought for those years to keep the city from doing so, but never presented a plan or funds to repair the…
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Joining the Star Tribune blog team
Today, I’ll be joining the state’s largest newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as a blogger. I’ll be posting on the Strib’s “Your Voices” blog once or twice a week with some of my greatest hits from here at MinnesotaBrown and occasional original pieces written for a statewide audience. I’ll have a standing blog page called the…
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Nolan calls for U.S., Iron Range steel in pipelines
U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) is calling for steel used in the construction of proposed transnational oil and gas pipelines to be made in America, with American iron ore. Nolan discussed his proposed bill with the Mesabi Daily News yesterday in an interview published today. We don’t know the political status of the bill, but…
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ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas visits Range for arson story
Though I failed to say anything about it when it was happening, the talk of the Iron Range some time ago was the Babbitt fire chief who was caught setting fires. I didn’t say anything because it was kind of a sad story (the guy has some problems), not one befitting of my normal snark…
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IRRRB OKs $21.5 million investment in Segetis
The IRRRB today approved a major investment in a biochemical company’s expansion to Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range. Here’s the press release: EVELETH, Minn.—The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) approved $21.2 million in funding to renewable biochemical company Segetis, Inc. at today’s board meeting in St. Paul. Segetis plans to…
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Report: Hedge fund seeks Cliffs takeover
Business North reports that a hedge fund with significant holdings of Cliffs Natural Resources stock is pushing for new board elections to install its own CEO. Cliffs owns and operates several iron ore mines in Minnesota and Michigan, including three here on the Iron Range: Hibbing Taconite, United Taconite in Eveleth and Northshore Mining in…
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Tower seeks to save decaying ‘back door’ bridge
The old iron ore bridge that provides a rusty retreat from the Iron Range city of Tower is in poor shape. They’d tear it down, but it’s one of the only ways out of town. The Tower Timberjay reports that the bridge qualifies for federal funding: The city had successfully argued that the bridge serves…