July 7, 2012

It’s not raining this morning and it’s cool.  Jim used our GSI Outdoors Java Drip portable coffee maker this morning.  This coffee pot is the best pot to make coffee without electricity. It takes up very little space in the Casita. A couple we met in Skagway, Alaska told us about it and we bought one at an outdoor store there.  Jim checked the power pole at 8:50 am and we have electricity.  After eating some breakfast we hiked to Kawishiwi Falls.  Up the river from the falls was a power plant.  We drove to town and found four geocaches today.

There is an iron ore mine that has tours about 20 miles out of town and we went there.  Soudan Underground Mine was the oldest, deepest and richest iron ore mine in its time.  It is known as the “Cadillac of Underground Mines”. The mine started out as an open pit mine in 1884 and went underground in 1892.  In 1884, men with picks, shovels, hand drills and wheelbarrows moved the ore out off the open pit. Later steam power was used and mules pulled carts of iron ore out of the mine. Electricity came in 1924 and a hoist, pumps and electric crusher were added. The mine closed in 1962 due to changing technology and high operating costs. United States Steel Corporation donated the mine and 1,200 acres around it to Minnesota for a state park.

We took a tour and rode a cage elevator down to the 27^th level.  Level 27 is called the Montana Slope and it is 2,341 feet below the surface. This is where the men were working when it closed in 1962.  It’s about 51 degrees here. Then we rode in small open train cars to the site where they were digging for the iron ore.  The tour guide pointed out a swirly rock formation consisting of jasper and hematite (iron ore).  She said that when jasper is encountered the miners stop digging because it is so hard.  The mine elevator is still operated manually by a man in the engine house on the surface.  We walked through there and watched him.

One of our geocache quests took us to a swirly rock outcropping which reminded us of the formation we saw in the mine.

We drove back to town and went to Dee’s bar and had a beer.  Then across to the VFW and sat a while and had some beers from old-time Great Lakes breweries.  They had a funny sign on the wall – Jim took a picture of it.  We had a coupon for a Summit beer for $2.00 so we went to Zaverl’s bar and got one of those, too.  Summit was the brewery we tried to go to on a tour in Minneapolis but they were booked up.  Zaverl’s has been a family operation since 1946 and the grandson of the original owner was our bartender.  He told us some stories about the family and the bar. Then we got a pizza and took it back to the Casita.