Elcor, Minnesota

Elcor
Ghost town
Maritana Avenue, one of only two paved roads in Elcor, looking south toward Manilla Street, 1980
Maritana Avenue, one of only two paved roads in Elcor, looking south toward Manilla Street, 1980
Elcor is located in Minnesota
Elcor
Elcor
Elcor is located in the United States
Elcor
Elcor
Coordinates: 47°30′19″N 92°26′28″W / 47.50528°N 92.44111°W / 47.50528; -92.44111
CountryUnited States
StateMinnesota
CountySt. Louis
Elevation
[1]
1,542 ft (470 m)
Time zoneUTC-6 (Central (CST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-5 (CDT)
Area code218
GNIS feature ID661197[1]

Elcor is a ghost town, or more properly, an extinct town, in the U.S. state of Minnesota that was inhabited between 1897 and 1956. It was built on the Mesabi Iron Range near the city of Gilbert in St. Louis County. Elcor was its own unincorporated community before it was abandoned and was never a neighborhood proper of the city of Gilbert.[2] Not rating a figure in the national census, the people of Elcor were only generally considered to be citizens of Gilbert.[3] The area where Elcor was located was annexed by Gilbert when its existing city boundaries were expanded after 1969.[4]

In November 1890, the seven Merritt brothers discovered ore near Mountain Iron, triggering an unparalleled iron rush to the Mesabi Range.[5] The Elba mine was opened in 1897, and the town was platted under the direction of Don H. Bacon, president of the Minnesota Iron Company. A second nearby mine, the Corsica, was opened in 1901. The community was first called "Elba" after the name of the first underground mine (the name "Elcor" was formed later by combining the first syllables of each mine's name). The Elba and Corsica mines were both leased by Pickands Mather and Company after the formation of the United States Steel Corporation.[6][7][8] An influx of people of many ethnicities and many nations followed, and Elcor became a microcosm of U.S. immigration, mirroring the cultural assimilation of the time.[9] At its peak around 1920, Elcor had two churches, a post office, a general store, a primary school, a railroad station, and its own law enforcement, and housed a population of nearly 1,000.[10]

Elcor was a mining location, built by the mining company to house the workers for its mines.[10] People were allowed to own their homes, but the land on which the houses stood belonged to the mining company.[11][12] After the Corsica mine closed in 1954, Pickands Mather and Company ordered the residents to vacate the property so that it could reclaim the land; by 1956, Elcor was completely abandoned.[2][13][14] The desolate property changed hands often through acquisitions, mergers, and bankruptcies. In 1993, the Inland Steel Company began stockpiling the overburden from what is now the Minorca Mine over Elcor's former location.[2][15][16]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Elcor gnis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c "Elcor: A gentle, good neighborhood now more than 50 years gone". Mesabi Daily News (MN). March 18, 2008. Archived from the original on March 18, 2018. Retrieved May 9, 2016.
  3. ^ "Elcor-People and the Place". Gilbert Herald (MN). April 14, 1982. p. 1.
  4. ^ "USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer". United States Geological Survey. Archived from the original on March 23, 2018. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  5. ^ Havinghurst 1958, pp. 75–76.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Iron Range History was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Van Brunt 1921, p. 469.
  8. ^ "State Minerals Leases". Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  9. ^ Abramitzky, Ran (April 12, 2017). "What history tells us about assimilation of immigrants". Stanford University. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Archived from the original on September 14, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Holten was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Lamppa 1962, p. 106.
  12. ^ Phillipich et al. 1982, p. 4.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ghosts was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Lamppa 1962, p. 107.
  15. ^ Glavan, Gregory (September 1999). "Elcor, An Iron Range Ghost Town: The Elcor Smokestack". Range Reminiscing. 24: 2.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Draft was invoked but never defined (see the help page).