-
Future of the Range is ‘Mucho Si’
I’ll be honest. I chuckled when I heard that a vacant restaurant property on Central Avenue in downtown Nashwauk was going to become a Mexican joint called “Mucho Si.” For one thing, the site has been several restaurants over the years, each succumbing to economic doom. My cousin ran one of them. I knew the guy who…
-
Iron Range original music party tonight
Tonight at 7 the WDSE program “The Playlist” hosts a “Celebrate Iron Range Original Music” live street dance in Virginia, Minnesota. Part of the festivities will be used for Thursday night’s 9 p.m. broadcast of “The Playlist” on WDSE-TV/PBS North. But tonight will also be a sprawling mass of Iron Range live music for your…
-
Daniel Berrigan, radical priest & Range native
On Saturday, April 30, peace activist and Jesuit Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan died at the age of 94. Berrigan was probably best known for his high profile protests of the Vietnam War, including multiple arrests for anti-war demonstrations. Most notably, Berrigan and fellow protesters seized draft records from an office in Maryland and burned them…
-
Mt. Iron-Buhl OKs $29 million school
UPDATE: On Tuesday, May 3, Mountain Iron-Buhl voters approved the bond referendum, paving the way for the new school proposal to move forward. The original piece, published May 2 follows: Voters in the Mountain Iron-Buhl school district will decide Tuesday on whether to accept a $29 million plan to build a new high school on Highway 169.…
-
Northshore Mining back to work early
Northshore Mining has called back workers early to reopen production of taconite at its Babbitt Mine and Silver Bay processing facility. The mine had previously announced it would reopen in mid- to late-May, but is ahead of schedule. WDIO reported on the news when U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) made the announcement after a tour of…
-
Range Shrine Circus in Hibbing this weekend
The Range Shrine Circus opens today at the Hibbing Memorial Building arena, the biennial event at the heart of building up the tolerance of young ears to random loud noises. The Shrine Circus has always alternated between Duluth and Hibbing each year, since 1953. Jim Fisher wrote about some circus memories and speculates on its…
-
All local Duluth sitcom ‘Old Lifty’ to premiere
Some say we’re in the golden age of television, a time when the breakdown of the big networks’ monopoly on production creates new opportunities for smaller, independent artists with good ideas. That’s certainly the white-capped Lake Superior wave that producers of a new web series based in Duluth hope to catch. “Old Lifty” is based on a…
-
MPR: Abuse cover-up at Buhl juvenile center
For residents of the Iron Range, the KidsPeace Mesabi Academy in Buhl is just a part of the tapestry of the region’s economic metamorphosis. Once the beloved neighborhood Buhl school, the building was “saved” by becoming a juvenile correction center for boys. This week, American Public Media Reports — a organizational relative of Minnesota Public…
-
On Letters of Hope
“Plant a nut, get a nut,” someone once told me about my son Doug’s antics. Approaching 9 years old, he has somehow outpaced my childhood obsession with historical trivia and the macabre. Last year, he wandered down to my home office and extracted a ten-pound American history textbook left over from my college days. “Can…
-
Duluth Homegrown runs today through May 8
The Duluth Homegrown Music Festival opens today and runs through next Sunday. This week-long music extravaganza is the hallmark of the emerging Duluth music scene and boasts more live music in one week than some towns see all year long. Quite simply, Duluth Homegrown is back-to-back live music all week long at more than a…
-
U.S. Steel charges at Chinese imports
U.S. Steel, once the vaunted industrial giant of the world, is taking one last Rooster Cogburn charge at the global steel crisis that has the Pittsburgh-based corporate titan cornered in some western meadow. J.P. Morgan’s flagship corporation has been contracting for decades, illustrated perfectly by its move out of a Pittsburgh skyscraper into a much smaller suburban…
-
Great Northern Radio Show from Pequot Lakes
The speed of life seems to have accelerated lately. End of the semester. Kids in school and activities. In any event, I’ve not talked about my April 9 Great Northern Radio Show from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. The Pequot Lakes show was a lot of fun and turned out well. The musical lineup delivered big time. Reina…
-
Cliffs eyes fall start for United Taconite
In a call to investors yesterday, Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves announced that his company will reopen Northshore Mining in May and plans to restart United Taconite in Eveleth later this year. Goncalves also announced that Cliffs made a profit during the last quarter, which wasn’t expected. However, Cliffs remains more than $2 billion in debt. A few weeks ago, Goncalves said United…
-
Kids love rubber mulch for all the wrong reasons
Playground equipment used to be hellish industrial machinery. Kids would bust their arms just looking at the hand pump merry-go-round. The ground was just that: ground. Heck, you were lucky if it was dirt. It might have been pavement. In a quest to make things safer, many new playgrounds use rubber mulch, bouncy chunks reclaimed…
-
ArcelorMittal, Steelworkers reach deal
The 2,000 Steelworkers and other workers currently laid off from Iron Range mines have been in the news for more than a year now. For much of that same year most remaining Steelworkers have been working under an expired labor contract. Last fall, labor tensions were high. The major companies, all reeling from big losses and shrinking…