The Vermilion Lake Gold Rush was a small

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

Lake Vermilion Lake Vermilion is a shallow freshwater lake in northeastern Minnesota, United States. The Ojibwe originally called the lake Nee-Man-Nee, which means “the evening sun tinting the water a reddish color”. French fur traders translated this to th ...

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 ...

, when prospectors found small specks of gold in

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

stone in 1865. It was not profitable to try to process this, so the rush ended in 1866, and the prospectors mostly abandoned their land by 1867. Nonetheless, prospectors returned, spreading word of all the iron that they found, leading to the development of the Minnesotan iron ranges twenty years later, most notably in

Shirley, Minnesota Shirley is an unincorporated community in Polk County, in the U.S. state of 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, w ...

References

Minnesota Mining History

1865 in the United States American gold rushes History of St. Louis County, Minnesota {{StLouisCountyMN-geo-stub