Gogebic Range

The Gogebic Range is an elongated area of iron ore deposits in northern Michigan and Wisconsin. It extends west from Lake Namakagon in Wisconsin to Lake Gogebic in Michigan or almost 80 miles. Though long, it is only about a half mile wide and forms a crescent to the southeast. The Gogebic Range includes the communities of Ironwood in Michigan, plus Mellen and Hurley in Wisconsin.

The name Gogebic is Ojibwa for "where trout rising to the surface make rings in the water." "Range" is the term commonly used for such iron ore areas around Lake Superior. The Gogebic Range experienced a speculative iron boom in the mid-1880s, and saw recurring booms and busts from 1884 to 1967.

The iron comes from the Huronian Ironwood formation. It consists of alternating beds of ferruginous oolitic chert and fine-textured cherty carbonates. Iron minerals make up one third of the formation content, the rest being quartz. The formation was discovered in 1848 by Dr. A. Randall during the Fourth principal meridian survey near Upson, Wisconsin. Ore was first produced in 1883 from the Colby Mine in Michigan.

The initial boom in the Gogebic Range came between 1884 and 1886. The discovery of high-grade Bessemer ore on the Gogebic Range and the consequent unfolding of vast possibilities led to a speculative craze the like of which has had no parallel in Michigan or Wisconsin. While it lasted, fortunes were made and lost within a month or even overnight. On September 16, 1886, the Chicago Tribune reported: “Hundreds of people are arriving daily from all parts of the country and millionaires are being made by the dozens ... The forests have given way to mining camps and towns, and a most bewildering transformation has taken place. In the palmy days of gold mining on the Pacific slope there is no record of anything so wonderful as the Gogebic.”

...
Wikipedia