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Magnetation announces ‘indefinite idle’ of Keewatin plant
After Mesabi Nugget announced a “warm idle” a couple weeks ago, another Iron Range iron ore producer announced an old fashioned “cold idle” today. Magnetation, the scram mining and iron concentrate producer based in Itasca County, announced today it would indefinitely shut down its Plant One facility near Keewatin. The plant, Magnetation’s smallest, will be…
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Rock and a hard place, change coming to the Iron Range
Some of life’s biggest myths are that 30 years is a long time, that today doesn’t matter, and that anything is permanent. Here on Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, the lessons of change that come from digging out the ground beneath our very feet have been hard learned. But what’s learned is so easily forgotten after those paltry 30 years.…
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A schoolhouse divided will not stand
Last week, the Nashwauk-Keewatin School Board voted to dissolve its shared services agreement with the Greenway School District on the western Mesabi Iron Range. Days later Greenway also backed away from most elements of the partnership. This marks the end of an experiment exposing many hard truths about the future of school and community collaboration on the Iron Range.…
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Essar claims financing; Magnetation rolls pellets
It’s been a big week of economic news on the western Mesabi Iron Range. Late last week, Magnetation LLC, announced it was producing taconite pellets at its Indiana processing plant using iron ore concentrate recovered from Itasca County pits. “This first production marks another significant milestone in Magnetation’s history,” said Larry Lehtinen, CEO of Magnetation.…
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U.S. Steel cancels KeeTac expansion plan
Business North reports that U.S. Steel announced several strategic decisions today, one of which was to cancel expansion plans at Keewatin Taconite on the Mesabi Iron Range. From the story: U. S. Steel executives said they considered its future raw materials needs for iron ore and coke, and found its current production capability sufficient. The…
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Range students build working hovercraft
Students in an engineering class at Nashwauk-Keewatin High School recently demonstrated their year-end project: a working hovercraft that can fly over water, snow and land. WDIO has the story, and video: The hovercraft uses a snowmobile engine and is built from a design the students drafted in class. Related posts: No related posts.
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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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Minnesota DNR maps help explore state with new eyes
The above image was created with a maps feature from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources web site. You can use data to create all kinds of different maps. This is the Mesabi Iron Range, as seen from the air in 2010. Naturally, I spent my time on the site checking out places around the Iron…
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Saturday rigatoni feed to help my aunt beat cancer
My aunt Cheryl Johnson from Keewatin is the kind of person who quietly takes care of everyone around her and never expects or receives much in return. Though she never married, she is the person her five sisters and many, many nieces and nephews have counted on for last minute care, rides, help and support.…
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Scenic Range NewsForum expands web presence
The Scenic Range NewsForum on the western Mesabi Iron Range recently launched its new website, a mobile-optimized site that tosses aside its clunky PDF reader-style predecessor. Along with this comes news that the Scenic snatched the low bid for becoming Itasca County’s newspaper of record, leaving the Grand Rapids Herald-Review to this painfully defensive story. As…
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Veterans Day: honor what vets did, but also why
Every year I attend the Keewatin American Legion annual Veterans Day Spaghetti Feed with my grandfather, a Korean War-era Air Force vet and 50-year member of the post. I am a rather poor member of the Sons of the Legion, a condition of my attendance at this venerated custom. It’s come to be an important…
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Dust in the wind … public meeting on dust in the wind
Tonight at 6 a public meeting will be held in the small western Iron Range city of Keewatin regarding the red dust blowing off the Magnetation scram mining site south of town. Representatives of Magnetation have been invited, as have local officials. Magnetation is a newer company producing iron concentrate from mine dumps once considered…
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A new legion for old stories and values
This past Saturday I climbed the narrow stairs of the Keewatin City Hall, stepping around the hoist chair at the bottom which was new last year but is now just part of the scenery. The occasion was the annual Keewatin Legion and Sons of the Legion spaghetti feed held in the auditorium where they used…