COMMENTARY — Lake Superior iron ore marks 150th

A year-long celebration has begun, marking the 150th anniversary of the discovery of iron ore in the Lake Superior region.

Transportation, construction, industry, communications, national defence and the arts depend on steel, and steelmaking depends on raw materials. The chief raw material for the steel industry is iron ore.

The discovery, in 1844, of iron ore in the Lake Superior region — an area that includes Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and western Ontario — led to the mining and processing of billions of tons of iron ore from some of the richest reserves in the U.S.

It led to the settlement of a large portion of the upper American Midwest and advanced the Industrial Revolution; it led to the development of the Soo Locks and boosted the industrial economies of cities from Chicago to Pittsburgh.

The sesquicentennial will celebrate the impact of the discovery of iron ore on the region and the U.S. and what it has meant to the upper Great Lakes area and its cities for the past 150 years.

The first iron ore mine, Jackson, was established within three years after the discovery near what is now the city of Negaunee, Mich. It would be the first of more than 100 mines to work the central Upper Peninsula — and the beginning of an industry that provides raw material for making steel, employing thousands in the region.

Mining has gone from small open pits to underground shafts deep below the surface, to today’s huge open pits. For the first 100 years, the rich ore was taken from the ground and shipped directly to mills for processing. That changed as the high-grade, easy-to-mine ore became less abundant while demand remained high.

A new process was developed in the 1950s that enabled the millions of tons of ore to be mined, processed and shipped economically. The new technology, which involves concentrating and pelletizing the lower-grade ores, remains in use today.

A slumping economy and competition from overseas (where higher-grade ores can be mined and shipped without being pelletized) have challenged iron ore producers to work more efficiently. Industry researchers are looking constantly at new ways to improve the process and develop new products that will use the reserves remaining in the region.

— From a recent issue of “Washington Concentrates,” published by the American Mining Congress.