Page 51 - USA ROAD TRIP SUMMER of 2000

We ate lunch and left the Park. Still raining, only harder with

heavy winds. Lois read aloud and I kept the car on the road. We
had heard about the probable recall of the Firestone tires we have

on this car and had some misgivings in the very bad weather

running with the heavily laden logging trucks.

We got to the town of Soudan in time to take an underground
tour of an iron ore mine. It was closed in 1962 and was given to

the State Park system. They now run tours for the public.

This mine started putting out iron ore in 1910. At its peak, this

highest-grade ore was used in every smelter in the USA. When the
Germans developed the blast furnace, the need for this particular

ore was lost and the mine finally closed.

After an unsettling short film and introductory remarks by the
guide, we gathered our courage and went down 2300 feet into the

mine in the same small loud, shaking, rapidly dropping elevator
car that took the men to work. The car is on a cable that lowers it

on a 70% angle. We were laying slightly backwards on a railroad-

like track rather than going straight down in free space. They
alluded to some “problems” they had had when they first tried

the straight down approach. There are times in one’s life when
questions are not asked as there are no answers that would be of

any reassurance. We were assured that if the cable broke, the car
would only fall 6 feet before the safety hooks would stop it. We

had 10 people in the car and were very close over the three
th
minutes it takes to drop to the 27 level.

Then we got into the rail cars that had in the past hauled the ore,
and were pulled through the tunnels for ¾ mile into the core of

the mine. There are 58 miles of tunnel down there.

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