The Minnesota Discovery Center, formerly known as Ironworld Discovery Center and originally as the Iron Range Interpretive Center, opened in the 1977 outside

Chisholm, Minnesota Chisholm is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 4,976 at the 2010 census. The city has been called "The Heart of the Iron Range" due to its location in the middle of the Mesabi Iron Range. History The city ...

, United States. It showcases northeastern

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

's "history and future" and includes a museum, entertainment venue, research center and library, and a park. The site offers various community programs and events including

Polka Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas. History Etymology The term ...

fests, concerts, and fairs. The property includes a memorial to

Rudy Perpich Rudolph George Perpich Sr. (June 27, 1928 September 21, 1995) was an American politician and the longest-serving governor of Minnesota, serving a total of just over 10 years. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, he served as the 34t ...

and holds historical documents and artifacts related to mining in the

Iron Range The term Iron Range refers collectively or individually to a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by ...

History

The museum complex opened in 1977 as the Iron Range Interpretive Center with 34 exhibits and was renamed in 1984 as Ironworld USA. In 2009 it became the Minnesota Discovery Center. It was built to celebrate the immigrants who built Minnesota's Iron Range mining region, including

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

Finns Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...

, and

Yugoslavs Yugoslavs or Yugoslavians ( Bosnian and Croatian: ''Jugoslaveni'', Serbian and Macedonian ''Jugosloveni''/Југословени; sl, Jugoslovani) is an identity that was originally designed to refer to a united South Slavic people. It has ...

. It was supposed to draw tourists from around the state and other parts of the U.S., but in the late 1990s was struggling to live up to attendance expectations. Due to shifting ground on the property with

mine shaft Shaft mining or shaft sinking is the action of excavating a mine shaft from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. Shallow shafts, typically sunk for civil engineering projects, differ greatly in execution method from ...

s beneath it, the tourist attraction faced a $2 million to $7 million cost in 2004 for filling and shoring up its foundation or to do complete reconstruction. It is located on the old Glen Mine property where there are abandoned mine shafts. The Center include a 1920s trolley that travels along a "picturesque" railway that winds around the Pillsbury mine pit and Glen mine disembarking at Wilpen Train Depot. There is a renovated 1905 Hill's Finn Boarding House. There is also the Pellet Pete 19 hole mini-golf course. The museum has two floors of "exhibits about labor history,

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

and other aspects of the industrial and cultural history of the region," including the

taconite Taconite () is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name "taconyte" was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865–1923) � ...

mining process and the evolution of the industry on the Iron Range.

References

External links

Minnesota Discovery Center
{{Authority control History museums in Minnesota Mining museums in Minnesota Museums in St. Louis County, Minnesota