With humor and insight, E. W. Davis tells the story that begins with the discovery of then-valueless taconite on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range in 1870 and several decades of attempts to process taconite commercially. Davis details the ups and downs of the exciting, decades-long research effort that resulted in a workable extraction method, followed by frustrating attempts to form the concentrate into small pellets. Finally, Davis describes building the first successful commercial processing plant at Silver Bay in the 1950s and the contributions by various companies to the birth of the industry. Along the way insider Davis recounts the founding of the three new northern Minnesota taconite towns, Babbitt, Silver Bay, and Hoyt Lakes.

Pioneering With Taconite

Science & Math

Davis, Edward W.

Technology

Minnesota Historical Society Pr

Voyageurs and Their Songs

Belgan, Theodore

Between 1862 and 1867, eight wagon trains carrying at least 1,400 people set out from Minnesota for the gold fields of Montana. These carefully edited letters and diaries trace their progress, revealing their day-to-day experiences, their success—or lack of it—in finding gold, and their lives in bustling mining settlements. “Private dreams of quick fortunes in El Dorado and public dreams of commercial empire and national greatness” moved the emigrants, writes Helen McCann White in her introduction, which places the three-month expeditions in their broader historical context and interprets their significance for the development of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana. An appendix identifies more than 850 members of the trains.

Ho! For the Gold Fields: Northern Overland Wagon Trains of the 1860's

History

Americas

This is the first complete English edition of a rare item of Americana entitled "Das Illustrirte Mississippithal", originally issued in a German translation in the 1850s. Although it was written in English and illustrated by Henry Lewis, an American artist living in Germany, only 74 pages of the work were ever published in the author's native tongue. Lewis based the work on firsthand information gained while living in St. Louis and on trips to the Upper Mississippi in 1846 to 1848. But the great value and interest of the book lies in the 78 lithographed illustrations which Lewis executed in color to accompany his text. His charming and historically accurate views of scenes and towns along the river valley from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico depict a bygone era when America was young. 7x10", xix+423 pp., 78 color plates.

Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated

Henry, Lewis

<p>Book by Porter, Rufus, Gilman, Rhoda R.</p>

Yankee Inventors Flying Ship

Gilman, Rhoda R.

PORTER, RUFUS

<p>the states history in picture form , Minnesota!</p>

The Story of Minnesota: The State's History in Picture Form

Fearing, Jerry

Well written and entertaining, A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor, describes the extensive travels of George William Featherstonhaugh in Wisconsin, Minnesota and various southern states in 1835 and 1837. Featherstonhaugh, an Englishman by birth, was a geologist by profession and well qualified to comment on the American scene. By the time of his travels in the 1830s, he had lived in the United States for nearly thirty years. He was also a linguist with an attentive ear for speech. In performing his duties as a geologist for the United States, he visited remote sections of the frontier that few other trained observers had yet an opportunity to see. In these two volumes Featherstonhaugh chronicles two separate expeditions?a geological expedition in 1835 of the area from Lake Michigan west to the Coteau des Prairies at the headwaters of the Minnesota River, and a tour in 1837 of the mineral lands of Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, and the western Carolinas.

A Canoe Voyage Up the Minnay Sotor (Volume 1 of 2)

Sports & Outdoors

Featherstonhaugh, George W.

Water Sports

Itasca Bison Kill Site: An Ecological Analysis (Minnesota Prehistoric Archaeology Series)

Shay, C. Thomas

St Paul 1973 Minnesota Historical Society. 4to., 146pp., wraps. VG.

Laurel Culture in Minnesota

Stoltman, James B.

Selected articles from Gopher historian magazine concentrate on regional surveys, geology, ethnic groups, and biographies of prominent people of Minnesota.

Gopher Reader Two

Poatgieter, Hermina

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