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Bobbie Jo (BJ) Carpenter is a culinary educator and writer living in the Twin Cities. Born and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota in the center of the Mesabi Iron Range, Carpenter grew up on traditional Iron Range foods and has fond memories of canning with her mother and learning to bake bread in her great aunt's wood burning stove. Carpenter is the author of “Come, You Taste,” a collection of traditional family recipes from Minnesota’s Iron Range. She has also co-authored the book “The Minnesota Table: Recipes for Savoring Local Food Throughout The Year.” For Carpenter, preserving the traditional foods of the Iron Range maintains a sense of where one comes from and is a way of keeping families connected.
Bryan Morcom identifies as a bit of a renaissance man who wears many hats including, Chef, Gardner, Forger and Traveler. A fifth generation Iron Ranger, Morcom grew up in Tower, MN and comes from a family of miners. Morcom would take a different path falling in love with cooking at the age of 15. After joining the Navy, Morcom studied at Le Cordon Bleu, eventually landing an internship at the restaurant Alma where he would go on to work for 13 years under Chef Alex Roberts. Following his tenure at Alma, Morcom would return to the Iron Range where he opened the pop-up restaurant Moose Bear Wolf in Ely where he aimed to introduce and celebrate Northern Flavors of the Iron Range, highlighting the connection between memory and food. Currently back in his hometown of Tower, Morcom remains hopeful for the future of Iron Range Foodways - hoping to highlight local ingredients and helping define Iron Range Foods.
Mary Lou Nemanic is an award winning documentary producer, photographer, and scholar. She holds a doctorate in American Studies and a Masters in Communication and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Minnesota. Mary Lou co-founded Documentary America, along with her producer husband, Douglas who grew up on the Iron Range. Together they have co-produced over 70 videos including two feature-length films: The Iron Range Family Album and Cattleman’s Days: The Granddaddy of Colorado Rodeos. Nemanic is also an Associate Professor Emerita at the Pennsylvania State University where she designed and helped develop the multimedia communications bachelor of arts degree for its Altoona College. Additionally she is the author of One Day for Democracy: Independence Day and the Americanization of Iron Range Immigration and Metro Dailies in the Age of Multimedia Journalism.
Tom Forti is the owner of the restaurant Iron Ranger. For the past ten years Forti has been serving Iron Range fare inspired by his family’s century-old bakery at his restaurant off Grand Ave in St. Paul. Although the restaurant is located in St. Paul, its roots are about 200 miles north in Hibbing where Forti grew up. The Iron Ranger originally started off as an extension of Forti’s family businesses - Sunrise Deli and Sunrise Bakery. Sunrise Bakery was started in 1913 by Forti’s great grandfather. Initially an Italian bakery, Sunrise would eventually evolve into traditional eastern ethnic specialty foods of the Iron Range. By the 1980s Forti’s parents would expand the family business, opening Sunrise Deli and embracing the more traditional ready to eat Iron Range foods such as pasty, sarma and potica. The Iron Ranger continues to support its local roots in Hibbing, sourcing much of its ingredients from the Sunrise Bakery and Deli.
Ephemera
“The Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine, Hibbing, Minnesota,” postcard, ca. 1930s, Fred and Jo Mazzula Collection, Among Carter Museum of American Art.
Government Documents and Reports
Isaac A. Hourwich, Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910, vol. XI, Mines and Quarries, 1909, General Report and Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913).
Reserve Mining Company Case Files, 1895-1990 (bulk 1947-1980).
Reserve Mining Company Materials, 1974-1975.
William C. Hunt, Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, vol. III, Population Composition and Characteristics of the Population by States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1922).
Manuscript Collections
Edward W. Davis Papers, 1883-1973, MNHS Call Number P1058.
Materials relating to the Oliver Iron Mining Company, 1860-1971, MNHS Call Number 148.H.17.6F/148.H.17.7B/142.G.2.7B-2
Mesabi Iron Company, Company Records, 1914-1953, MNHS Call Number BC2.1/.M578.
Pamphlets Relating to Iron Ore Deposits and Iron Mining in Minnesota, 1893-, MNHS Call Number TN400-TN403.
Pamphlets Relating to Iron Ore and Taconite Processing, 1924-, MNHS Call Number TN500.
Pamphlets Relating to 1964 Taconite Amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution, 1964, MNHS Call Number KFM5803 1964.
Taconite Tailings Records, 1969-1977.
Maps
Map showing iron ranges and ore carrying railroads of Minnesota, 1907, MNHS Call Number G4141.H2 1907 .H63.
Newspapers
“Grand Picnic,” Ely Miner (Ely, Minn.), June 16, 1922.
“Great Comedy!,” Ely Miner (Ely, Minn.), February 17, 1922.
The Eveleth News (Eveleth, Minn.), November 13, 1924.
“Pasty Supper Will Feature Next Meet of Commercial Club,” The Eveleth News (Eveleth, Minn.), March 25, 1926.
“Poor Little Rich Village Moves Bag and Baggage to Its New Home,” The Sunday Morning Star (Wilmington, Del.), October 2, 1921.
“Second Annual Ely Community Fair,” Ely Miner (Ely, Minn.), September 12, 1924.
“Town of 15,000 Moved 2 Miles to Uncover Ore,” The Troy Sunday Budget (Troy, N.Y.), August 27, 1922.
Published Primary Sources
Charles E. Van Barneveld, “Iron Mining in Minnesota,” Bulletin No. 1, Minnesota School of Mines (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1912), 175-179.
Edward W. Davis, Pioneering with Taconite. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1964.
N.H. Winchell, “The Iron Ore Ranges of Minnesota, and Their Differences,” Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science 5, no. 1 (1911): 53-61.
“The Wonderful Iron Mines of Lake Superior–How the Ore is Mined and Carried in Bulk,” Scientific American 101, no. 24 (December 11, 1909), 431.
William H. Emmons and Frank F. Grout, eds., “Mineral Resources of Minnesota,” Bulletin No. 30, University of Minnesota, Minnesota Geological Survey (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1943).
Cookbooks at the Gale Family Library at MNHS.Link here.
Alanen, Arnold R. “The ‘Locations:’ Company Communities on Minnesota’s Iron Ranges,” Minnesota History 48 (Fall 1982).
Bastow, Thomas F. This Vast Pollution: United States of America v. Reserve Mining Company. Washington, D.C.: Green Field Books, 1986.
Carpenter, B.J. Come, You Taste: Family Recipes from the Iron Range. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015.
Kakela, Peter J. “Iron Ore: From Depletion to Abundance.” Science 212, no. 4491 (April 10, 1981): 132-186.
Kohn, Clyde F. and Raymond E. Specht. “The Mining of Taconite, Lake Superior Iron Mining
District.” Geographical Review 48, no. 4 (October 1958): 529-530.
LaVigne, David. “Immigration to the Iron Range, 1880-1930.” MNopedia, August 26, 2015.
Lockwood, Yvonne R. and William G. Lockwood, “Pasties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula:
Foodways, Interthnic Relations, and Regionalism,” In Creative Ethnicity: Symbols and Strategies of Contemporary Ethnic Life, Stepehn Stern and John Allan Cicala, editors (Utah State University Press, 1991).
Manuel, Jeffrey T. “Mr. Taconite: Edward W. Davis and the Promotion of Low-Grade Iron Ore, 1913-1955.” Technology and Culture 54, no. 2 (April 2013): 317-345.
Manuel, Jeffrey T. Taconite Dreams: The Struggle to Sustain Mining on Minnesota’s Iron Range, 1915-2000. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
Nemanic, Mary Lou. One Day for Democracy: Independence Day and the Americanization of Iron Range Immigrants. Ohio State University Press, 2016.
The Routledge History of American Foodways. Edited by Michael D. Wise and Jennifer Jensen Wallach. Routledge, 2016.
Trubek, Amy. The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. University of California Press,
Walker, David A. Iron Frontier: The Discovery and Early Development of Minnesota’s Three Ranges. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1979.
Whitson, Joseph. “Monumental Mines: Mine Tourism, Settler Colonialism, and the Creation of an Extractive Landscape on Minnesota’s Iron Range.” The Public Historian 41, no. 3 (August 2019): 49-71.