We drove up to Hibbing Mn on Thursday evening, August 5, and stayed at the Hibbing Park Hotel (they had fresh cookies...yum. Friday we went to Hull Rust Mahoning Mine, the world's largest open pit iron ore mine. It covers 3,075 acres. The maximum length is 3.5 miles, east to west. The maximum width is 1.5 miles, north to south. At its deepest point, it is 535 feet deep. More than 1.4 billion tons of earth has been removed from the site, which is equivalent of digging a narrow tunnel from Minnesota, through the center of the Earth, and out the other side. More than 800 million tons of iron ore have been shipped from this site. At peak production in the 1940s, as much as one quarter of the ore mined in the U.s. came from the Hull Rust pit. The water in the pit is spring fed, and at its deepest point, it is more than 200 feet deep. Looking down from the observation area, these huge pit shovels and dump trucks look teeny, but up close, even the 'small' ones are enormous.
This National Historic Landmark has inspired folks to coin the phrase 'Grand Canyon of the North'
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