Gogebic Range

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Iron deposits on Lake Superior.
Gogebic Range Geology
Gogebic Geologic Map

The Gogebic Range is a iron - deposit in northern Michigan and Wisconsin . It extends west from Lake Namakagon in Wisconsin to Lake Gogebic in Michigan over a distance of 80 miles (120 km). Although the deposit runs over a great length, it is only very narrow in width. It is generally only half a mile (800 m) wide and forms a crescent moon to the southeast. The Gogebic Range is located in the parishes of Ironwood , Michigan, Mellen, and Hurley , Wisconsin.

Surname

The name Gogebic comes from Ojibwa and means "where trout come to the surface and cause rings in the water". "Range" is commonly used to refer to the iron deposits around Lake Superior . An "iron boom" arose along the Gogebic Range in the mid-1880s and there were repeated smaller boom times until 1967.

Iron boom - iron bull market

The ores are found in the Huronian Ironwood Formation ( Paleoproterozoic glaciation ). This consists of alternating layers of iron-bearing oolithic Chert rocks and Cherty carbonates with a fine texture. The iron minerals make up to a third of the rock mass. The rest is made of quartz. The formation was founded in 1848 by Dr. A. Randall discovered during the Fourth Principal Meridian Survey at Upson, Wisconsin . Ore was first mined at the Colby Mine in Michigan in 1883 .

Piece of "Tree-Trunk" hematite from the Montreal Mine; (15.8 × 6.2 × 2.7 cm).

The first boom in the Gogebic Range occurred between 1884 and 1886. The discovery of high iron Bessemer ore and the promotion of the possibility led to a frenzy of speculation unparalleled in Michigan and Wisconsin. Fortunes were made or lost in days. On September 16, 1886, the Chicago Tribune reported :

"Hundreds of people arrive here every day from all over the country and millionaires are made by the dozen here ... The forests are giving way to mining camps and cities, and a disturbing transformation has taken place. In the heyday of the gold digging on the slopes of the Pacific there were no reports of such wonderful things as in Gogebic. "

For decades until the mid-1920s, “The Gogebic” was a major source of iron in the United States. It also fueled the industrial boom in the Upper Midwest . In 1930 the yield decreased. The mines closed due to the global economic crisis and the economy in the Gogebic Range collapsed.

Some mines worked until the mid-1960s, but production never reached the level of the first few decades. The last batch of ore was delivered to Granite City Steel in Illinois in August 1967 .

present

Today the landscape has largely recovered from the scars of exploitation. A tourism industry with ski resorts and waterfalls has emerged. There are large state-owned landscaped areas in the region, such as the Ottawa National Forest and Gogebic County Forest , which are used for recreational purposes and for timber harvesting. Biking and hiking trails have been set up on old logging roads (forest roads).

Gogebic County

Gogebic County and neighboring Iron County are advertised as "Big Snow Country". There is a Natural Ski Hill on Lake Superior in Porcupine Mountains State Park .

In Gogebic County , there are 22 waterfalls and ten more at the Montreal River in Iron County. The main falls are on Presque Isle - and on the Black River, half a mile (0.5 miles) from Lake Superior. There is also the Superior Falls with 100 ft (30 m) high cliffs on the Montreal River. They also form the Michigan-Wisconsin border northwest of Ironwood.

Since the 2000s, companies have been examining the possibility of mining lower-quality ore again.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Henry Aldrich: The Geology of the Gogebic Iron Range of Wisconsin . State of Wisconsin, 1929, p. 5.
  2. ↑ Henry Eduard Legler : Leading Events of Wisconsin History ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.library.wisc.edu
  3. ↑ “Hundreds of people are arriving daily from all parts of the country and millionaires are being made by the dozens ... The forests have given way to mining camps and towns, and a most bewildering transformation has taken place. In the palmy days of gold mining on the Pacific slope there is no record of anything so wonderful as the Gogebic. "
  4. ^ Emily Lambert, "A Mining Rush in the Upper Peninsula," New York Times , May 24, 2012.

literature


Coordinates: 44 ° 6 ′ 43.2 "  N , 87 ° 54 ′ 46.8"  W.