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Hope for the Iron Range economy, but we must put the past behind us
At the hunting shack this year, my grandfather Ward Brown, Jr., told how a high school friend saved him from getting beat up by a Chisholm gang back around 1952. Not long after, this friend lay dead in the wreck of his restored ’32 Chevy on the road between Side Lake and Hibbing. No “Leave […]
Iron Range, seething at the Twin Cities, continues right turn
Iron Range Republicans have been waiting for an election like Tuesday’s their whole lives. No, really. There hasn’t been one this good for the local GOP since Hoover. Republican Rob Farnsworth won the open State Senate seat in the central Mesabi Range by a solid seven-point margin. This is the beating heart of the Iron […]
As Range mine’s ore runs low, election year drama runs high
Hibbing Taconite is either going to close in early 2024 or stay open for decades. It depends on who’s telling the truth — and the role politics played in a botched story about 740 jobs being lost as Minnesota’s second largest mine runs out of iron ore. It all begins midday Thursday with this breaking news […]
Sen. Paul Wellstone and the portents of his death, two decades later
When I was a kid I spent most summers riding my bicycle along every back road within 25 miles of our house near Forbes. This habit toured me through the nooks and crannies of the Mesabi Iron Range, the geography of which still wallpapers the interior of my brain. I went everywhere, but there was […]
Fascism from Italy to Hibbing and back again
In 2018, I traveled 4,000 miles to interview a man named Victor Befera about our shared hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. Vic was 92 then. He’s still kicking at 96. Though he spent most of his life as a successful newspaper and marketing man in northern California, Vic grew up on the Mesabi Iron Range in […]
New labor movement might save America just yet
“We’re being treated unfairly and we’re not going to take it.” — Kasey Copeland, Minneapolis Starbucks barista and union organizer, 2022 When the union organizer showed up, all the small town’s upstanding citizens agreed he was a disgrace. Here he was, still sweaty from yesterday’s train, slicked hair talking to workers about how they were […]
Stop vibing and start thinking
Lately, I’ve been seeing the phrase “Good Vibes Only” more often. It’s one of those popular sayings that fit nicely on coffee mugs, t-shirts and decorative throw pillows. The term may go back to the 1960s, but was popularized more recently beginning in 2011. Interestingly, that’s roughly when our nation began to figuratively reject its […]
From Mesaba Energy to Foxconn, boondoggles light money on fire | Essay
An old friend in Iron Range politics once said it was easier to get people riled up about $25,000 in wasted taxpayer money than $10 million. “Twenty-five grand is a pickup truck,” he told me. “Ten million is incomprehensible.” Pickups cost $50,000 now — more if you want your butt warmed while you idle in […]
Cost of living is our harshest tax | Opinion
Sometimes I think about the one bedroom apartment in Hibbing, Minnesota, where my wife and I first lived. We weren’t married yet, just two kids playing house. The rent was about $325 a month. Our utilities cost even less. It was the dawn of the 21st Century. She was a newspaper reporter earning about $22,000 […]
Automatic or the people | Essay
Somewhere on the Iron Range a railroad engineer noses an 85-car train under the load-out chute at a taconite plant. One by one, each car fills with almost 100 tons of iron ore. The contents of this train will be worth several hundred thousand dollars to the company. If all goes well, and it usually […]
As Bakk retires, unpredictable new era begins on the Iron Range | Opinion
Today, we observe the end of an era in Iron Range politics and the beginning of a shapeless and developing new order. State Sen. Tom Bakk, I-Cook, announced Thursday that he will retire from the Legislature at the end of his term this year. This comes two weeks after the retirement of State Sen. David […]
A homespun stitch in time could save us | Essay
My wife and I recently enjoyed a rare evening out. Like with most parents, such occasions allow small joys that our busy lives often prevent. I picked the entertainment, so Christina got to go to the fabric store. She likes to loom knit and thought she might try her hand at crocheting. My wife needs […]