Last week here on the Years of Yore page some of the history of the Hill Annex Mine and the area around it was shared with readers. Today we will continue that story.
The Hill Annex Mine, which ceased production in 1978, then served as a wonderful site for locals and tourists to learn about mining. It became a Minnesota State Park in 1988 and in 1991 it was transferred to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The legislation which established the park made clear that at some point mining might be conducted again at the Hill Annex Mine, in which case the Park would need to close.
That time seems to be now as “scram mining,” the mining of stockpiles and tailing basins, is being planned for the Hill Annex Mine.
Over the course of its 60-year history, this mine produced 63 million tons of ore—a very impressive amount. The men who worked there not only contributed to the mine’s success, but also to their families and communities. Today more of that history will be shared.
Once again, a segment from the very well-researched book “Beyond the Circle” will be used, due to the kind permission of the author Leo Trunt. His book is available through the Itasca Historical Society.
This week, I will also be sharing with readers some information from a memoir written for his family by a miner who worked at the Hill Annex Mine. “Remembering My Working Years” is the title of the personal writings of Virgil Gustafson. His grandson, Justin Gustafson, very kindly shared his grandfather’s memoir with me, for which I am most grateful.
As I read Virgil’s story, I was pleased to run across the name Thomas Appelget, who also figured in Leo Trunt’s book. Readers of last week’s Years of Yore might remember that Thomas Appelget, the Calumet village engineer, was dedicated to Boy Scouting. He was instrumental in getting a camp built on Twin Lakes. That camp was used from the mid-1920s until the mid-1950s.
Here is some more about him in Virgil Gustafson’s story.
—
There was the best loved man in Calumet, Tom Appelget, well known for his affiliation with the Boy Scouts. The Itasca area is known as the Appelget District. During his many years as scoutmaster of Troop 24 of Calumet, he had produced many Eagle Scouts, which is the highest grade in Scouting.
He recruited me to be the scoutmaster of that famous troop. And I, in turn, asked Fred Gross to be my assistant. Fred had advanced well in Tom’s troop as a boy, but I must have demonstrated a little more of the leadership Tom was looking for.
We had a great bunch of boys, and had great times on Camporees and other scouting activities. We didn’t have any boys advance to Eagle Scout during our tenure, but we had at least seven boys of outstanding character who merited that distinction.
I left scouting after some five or six years. All in all it was time well spent as I did get to lead a troop of outstanding Range lads to the National Jamboree of 1953 held at the Irvine Ranch in California near Long Beach.
—
Virgil Gustafson recalled some of his work at the Hill Annex Mine.
In 1942, the Hill Annex Mine was employing electric locomotives to transport ore from the mine to the washing plant located several miles to the south on the north side of Panacea Lake. Large numbers of wooden railroad ties were required and, to facilitate handling by a mobile track crane, the ties were piled in groups of twenty.
The tie yard was generally accepted as a place to “goof off,” but when you were “Old Carl Gross’s” partner, as I was, you piled—and piled all day long. Carl had been a timber cruiser (a person employed by the government or a logging company to go out into the stands of timber and determine where there are trees worth cutting down for lumber) in his younger days and had lots of stories to tell. One of these stories was about how Thistledew Lake near Togo got its name. He said that his timber cruising partner picked a place to camp on the lake and noted it on his map and in his journal “This will do.” That got changed to “Thistledew” and once the logging company recorded it as such, the name stuck.
Carl was still working at the mine as a pump house attendant when I returned after the war. He walked to work every day and at an advanced age at a pace that would shame a man one-third his age.
Mr. Tillinghast, everyone called him “Mr.” as he was very well-liked, was the Mine Superintendent when I returned home after the war. I went to inquire about going back to work. He asked me what I had been doing in the Army. I told him that I had been in an Engineer Topographic Battalion. He informed me that there would be a place for me in the Engineering Department, for which I was very grateful.
In 1950, it was becoming evident that the ores which were readily amenable to simple washing were almost exhausted. Beneficiation of ores similar to those remaining at the Hill Annex Mine were being successfully treated by the Cleveland Cliffs Company at their Mesabi Cliffs Heavy Media Plant located just south of Calumet on Upper Panacea Lake.
A preliminary sampling program led to a laboratory testing program. Since there was no such facility at the Hill Annex, we were invited to use the Cliffs testing laboratory at Taconite.
As a result of this meager testing program, the Panacea Lake washing plant was modified. However, after operating for two years with less than satisfactory results and difficult maintenance in a facility ill-designed for this radical technology, it was decided to construct a new plant at the mine site.
I was at this time the only member of a hastily conceived testing laboratory in the original mine hoist house. I would soon be promoted to a salaried position. We did manage some workable solutions to persistent problems. We also collaborated on several projects that led to the construction of the Tailings Reclaim plant—one of the first plants on the Range to utilize froth flotation.
—
Leo Trunt in his book “Beyond the Circle” adds more information to this time and place.
By the early 1960s, many of the washing plants had been shut down. The natural ore pits were largely played out as the iron ore content became less and less.
Also, by the 1960s, road work and improvements by Itasca County had reached a point where it was felt that the county’s equipment should be stored in the South Range area. A garage was built in 1965 on the east side of Highway 12, near the intersection of Bass Lake Road. Natural gas pipeline construction took place in South Range during this time also. Calumet and Marble now could have natural gas.
—
In recent years, very interesting news came from the Hill Annex Mine. It was news that uncovered what was going around here 90 million years ago!
The following is part of a story by Liz Sawyer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, published on October 8, 2015.
Until recently, precious little evidence existed to suggest the prehistoric beasts ever roamed the area that became Minnesota. But the accidental discovery of a 1 ¾ -inch claw bone is making researchers think twice.
The fully intact claw, thought to be about 90 million years old, is only Minnesota’s third piece of dinosaur remains ever documented, experts say. Although paleontologists don’t know to what extent dinosaurs made Minnesota home, the finding is significant because it confirms that they were indeed here—renewing hope that there are more fossils yet to be uncovered.
John Westgaard, the paleontology research project lead at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, says, “The common line for us to share with visitors was that evidence of dinosaurs just doesn’t exist here…the glaciers came through and scraped everything off and it’s all gone.” But new evidence now may encourage a more careful look at what’s out there.
The Iron Range was believed to be an estuary system that drained into a seaway that extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, covering much of Minnesota. The water in the estuary deposited Cretaceous sediments that would later become exposed during mining.
The stockpiles with low iron yields left behind from the heyday of mining at the Hill Annex Mine are where Westgaard and teams of volunteers have scavenged thousands of fossils. The most common finds are shark teeth, clams, snails, and coiled shells. Visitors to the piles of earth are free to keep the scales, teeth or other fossils they may uncover. The Science Museum staff work with the visitors to document noteworthy finds.
Volunteer Len Jannusch had been plucking shark teeth from a pile of dirt for a few hours when his back began to hurt from bending over. He decided to take a walk and spotted an unusually shaped fragment near a deer trail. It was the claw bone, sitting right on top of the piles, completely exposed. “It was the best Monday ever.”
—
The Hill Annex State Park and the mine’s piles of overburden and low-grade ore are now all off-limits to people due to the mining which may soon be underway in the area.
Most Popular
Comments / 0