Published June 27, 2004 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
Here’s a summer quiz for you.
“Back in the day, they used to pull tons and tons of (NAME THIS ELEMENT) out of these hills. Our city was booming. Now we have lots of mine tours and our politicians draw tax-free zones around all the decrepit old buildings in town.”
Quick! Name that element!
NOOOO! (Unless you actually read the headline, in which case you might have figured this one out).
Some might think I was talking about iron, in reference to our native Iron Range. I am actually talking about copper – an element fresh in my mind from a recent vacation to the glorious upper peninsula of Michigan. It was a good trip, full of history and natural wonder. It was also a self-confidence boost. The rat-trap buildings they’re trying to pass off as economic development centers are vastly more rat-trappy than ours.
Many similarities between the U.P. and the Iron Range exist, but there are important differences, too. For instance, we Iron Rangers like pasties. Yoopers LOOOVE pasties. We mine iron. They also mine iron, but they also used to mine copper. They like to point this out a lot. We never had major copper operations, but we do have one of the world’s largest natural supplies of peat. (Peat is pre-coal – which means we’ll have some dandy coal mines here in roughly 10,000 years, provided the mining of coal is still allowed by our robot overlords).
One unique parallel between the Range and the U.P. is a deep-seeded distrust of neighboring towns. We toured a historic lighthouse in Eagle Harbor where the tour guide detailed a dispute with nearby Copper Harbor over who would have the refueling station in their marina. Eagle Harbor had it now. Copper Harbor just put one in, potentially reducing demand for the Eagle Harbor station. But, you know, Eagle Harbor is a port of refuge and for them not to have the marina station is just madness … madness!
This went on for some time, until around the time the man was talking about how many generations ago his family came to Eagle Harbor, when suddenly I realized exactly how someone from Kankakee, Ill., feels when someone from Hibbing starts talking about how they used to have the county fair until Chisholm stole it. STOLE IT, I SAY!
There’s a lesson here. People from other towns who want to spend money in your town don’t care about where the county fair was 20 years ago. They want to spend money and learn about your rich mining history, ripe with tales of strikes and tonnage, or, save that, ride go-carts ‘til their ears bleed. It’s true for the U.P. and it’s true for us.
Some might remember one of my columns from last year, where I discussed the possibility of northeastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the U.P. forming the 51st state of Superior. I casually looked for clues that the Yoopers were up for statehood, but failed to find any. Unfortunately, the seed of revolution needs to be “rained on” a few more years by “The Man” and his legions of suburban minions from Lansing, Madison and/or St. Paul before it is ready to bloom.
One thing is for certain. When this new state is formed, we’ll have no shortage of prime real estate for economic development. If we can put aside our municipal rivalries, we’ll have a fine state indeed.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.