Minnesota Brown

Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

Category: News

  • Oy! The Range is on the BBC

    Oy! The Range is on the BBC

    That little news ticker on the side of this blog is already paying off. Check out this Lucy Ash story from the BBC about how Chinese demand for steel has re-energized the Iron Range steel industry. But when you go to your next public meeting, or talk to community leaders, or go to vote, remember…

  • Chain of Command opens Thursday, Oct. 25 for two weekends

    Chain of Command opens Thursday, Oct. 25 for two weekends

    My friend Mike Ricci, director of the Hibbing Community College Theatre, is opening an original show this week. You should always come to Hibbing to see Mike’s shows, but this one especially. A Minneapolis playwright worked with Mike and his cast to write an original play speaking to the human element of the Iraq war.…

  • Essar buys Minnesota Steel: Project is for real

    Essar buys Minnesota Steel: Project is for real

    The headline may seem redundant to a business section editor, but on the Iron Range we are so used to getting burned on big economic projects that we don’t start popping bottle tops until the ink is dry. (Or is it that we don’t STOP popping bottle tops until the ink is dry; maybe both).…

  • The danger looming above Bovey

    Local media have reported on the dangers surrounding the eroding Canisteo Mine Pit by Bovey, where water levels in the pit now rest several feet above portions of the city of Bovey. A rapidly eroding wall of earth is all that prevents a major flood that would destroy much of the town and wash out…

  • Implicatons of a new era for Range mining industry

    Implicatons of a new era for Range mining industry

    On Tuesday, the Iron Range Resources board held a special meeting to approve a new structure for a loan to the Minnesota Steel project as it enters the final stages of its purchase by India-based Essar Steel. (Today’s Mesabi Daily News details the deal). This is seen as the final hurdle in the private financing,…

  • Time to ‘hunt’

    Time to ‘hunt’

    I often tell people that, while I do not hunt, I come from a family with deep hunting traditions. This is my way of defraying the perplexed looks I get from my Iron Range/Northern Minnesota brethren who can’t understand a guy who lives here but doesn’t hunt OR fish. Really, I have nothing against hunting.…