What is Taconite?

When we bought Clearwater Lodge in 2003, it was my first expience living in Minnesota. Each state is unique and are always expressions or words that are new. Taconite was a new one for me.

The Gunflint Trail is at the very western edge of the Mesabi Iron Range. To the west of us is iron ore, and areas to the north of us in Canada there is gold and silver. It is probably good for us as a wilderness area, but the Gunflint area was pretty much a bust when it came to any of these minerals. In the late 1800's many, many areas were drilled or mines built looking for the riches. None lasted long. One mine actually had a railroad line built to it to haul out the ore. The first carload revealed Taconite and that was the one and only load taken out. Taconite was pretty useless at that time.

As all the pure iron ore got scarce a way to mine iron from Taconite was invented. Taconite is an iron bearing, high silica, flint like rock. There are iron rich layers in between layers of shale and quartz. To process taconite, the ore is ground into a fine powder, the iron is separated from the waste rock by using strong magnets, and then the powdered iron concentrate is combined with bentonite clay and limestone as a flux and rolled into pellets about one centimeter in diameter that are approximately 65% iron. The pellets are heated to very high temperatures to oxidize the magnetite (Fe3O4) to hematite (Fe2O3) for further processing.

The Mesabi Iron Range region of state of Minnesota is a major production area. The taconite iron concentrate is shipped by railroad through Silver Bay, Two Harbors and the Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin, all on Lake Superior. The ore is generally shipped to other locations on the Great Lakes. Many steelmaking centers are located near Lake Erie. From about 1900 through 1992, great machines called Hulett ore unloaders performed the task. Self-unloading ships later made the Huletts obsolete.