Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
The Merritts find the Mesabi
1890
Mountain Iron, Minnesota
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Seven brothers had been looking for iron for years when they found it here, not in hard rock but as soft red hematite lying close enough to the surface to be dug with a steam shovel. It was so easy to mine it broke the price. Overextended in the 1893 panic, the Merritts borrowed from John D. Rockefeller, lost the range to him inside two years, and died poor while it produced for a century.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: documented spot
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