The Iron Range and Its Economy
From a geological perspective, the Iron Range in Minnesota includes these four major iron deposits:
- Mesabi Range, the largest iron range, largely within Itasca and St. Louis counties;
- Vermilion Range, northeast of the Mesabi, in St. Louis and Lake counties;
- Gunflint Range is in the extreme northern portion of Cook County and extends into Canada; and
- Cuyuna Range, southwest of the Mesabi, largely within Crow Wing County.
The large size of the Mesabi Range leads many Minnesotans to equate it directly with the Iron Range, in exclusion of the other, smaller ranges.
The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB), sometimes known simply as "the I-triple-R-B" or Iron Range Resources, is an economic development agency funded partly by taxes levied by the state on taconite-producing companies and charged with creating jobs. Detractors consider it an example of pork barrel politics.
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Famous quotes containing the words iron, range and/or economy:
“Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)