Sunday, June 10, 2007

The Iron Range

The Iron Range of Minnesota reminded me distressingly of my homeland in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania. Same dying towns and immigrant descended populations scraping out an existence with next to no economy to support them.

We found two churches in Chisholm; one being Russian Orthodox and the other a Serbian Orthodox (the latter being quite the rarity).

This rather large statue of an iron miner is also in Chisholm and claims to be the 4th largest such monument (free standing and metal) in the United States.

Lastly the town supported a dwindling Italian community (extraordinarily rare for the upper Midwest outside of a large city like Chicago or Milwuakee) and here is a picture of the local pasta manufacturer.

Pennsylvania supplied the coal, Minnesota the iron; Carnegie got to found a whole slue of libraries from the proceeds.

~Eikon