Soudan is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Breitung Township, Saint Louis County,

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 385. The community is located immediately east of the city of

Tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

Minnesota State Highway 1 Minnesota State Highway 1 (MN 1) is a state highway across northern Minnesota, United States, which runs from North Dakota Highway 54 (ND 54) at the North Dakota state line (at the Red River in Oslo) and continues east to its eastern ter ...

and Minnesota State Highway 169. It is the home of McKinley Park, a park and campground operated by Breitung Township, named in honor of former

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until Assassination of William McKinley, his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...

, who was in office from 1897 to 1901. The

Soudan Underground Mine State Park The Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park is a Minnesota List of Minnesota state parks, state park at the site of the Soudan Underground Mine, on the south shore of Lake Vermilion, in the Vermilion Range (Minnesota). The mine is kno ...

is located nearby. The park contains the University of Minnesota's Soudan Underground Laboratory which houses detectors, including

MINOS Main injector neutrino oscillation search (MINOS) was a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) experiment in 1998. Neutrinos produced by the NuMI ...

, over 700 meters below the surface of the Earth. Both the mine and the underground laboratory are open for tours. It has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

with the ZIP code 55782.

History

The village of Soudan was established March 3, 1885. Soudan obtained its name from D. H. Bacon, general manager of the Soudan Underground mine. Bacon named the area – with its severe winter cold – Soudan, in strong contrast to the tropical heat of the Soudan (or

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

) region of Africa. The village had a post office, established as Tower Mines in 1887 and changed to Soudan in 1888; associated with Tower Junction. Soudan has since returned to being an unincorporated community. The first mining exploration of the area took place in 1865. According to the 1905 Legislative Manual of the State of Minnesota, the first mining done in northern Minnesota took place at Soudan in 1882. The Duluth & Iron Range Railroad had been built to the area. In 1886 the road was sold to the Minnesota Iron Company, which was absorbed into the Federal Steel Company and then into the

United States Steel Corporation The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe. The company produces and sells steel products, ...

(operated by the Oliver Mining Company). In 1903, the town was described as being located on the property of the mining company and no stores or saloons were allowed. The number of mine workers varied between 500 and 700 men. Darby Nelson (1940–2022), writer and politician, was born in Soudan.Darby Miles Nelson-obituary
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References

* Rand McNally Road Atlas – 2007 edition – Minnesota entry * Official State of Minnesota Highway Map – 2011/2012 edition

External links

Lake Vermilion – Soudan Underground Mine State Park
(Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) {{authority control Census-designated places in Minnesota Census-designated places in St. Louis County, Minnesota Mining communities in Minnesota 1885 establishments in Minnesota Populated places established in 1885

History

See also

References

External links