Flooded Wacootah Mine Pit, Mountain Iron

Water-filled Wacootah Mine pit surrounded by autumn forest near Mountain Iron, Minnesota.
Water-filled Wacootah Mine pit surrounded by autumn forest near Mountain Iron, Minnesota.

The Wacootah Mine was an iron ore pit on Minnesota's Mesabi Range, near Mountain Iron in St. Louis County. Mining operations in the area date to the late 1800s, part of the broader Mesabi Range district that once supplied a large share of the nation's iron ore. Like many exhausted pits on the Range, the former excavation has filled with groundwater, forming a lake within the surrounding second-growth forest. The site sits within the same mining district as the nearby Minntac operation, one of Minnesota's largest active taconite processing plants.

Photo taken in September 2021.

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Iron Range
Industrial infrastructure and signage across Minnesota’s Iron Range, from Polymet operations to power plants and safety warnings
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