Photo by McGhiever, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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About Minnesota Discovery Center Trolley
Discover the rich history of Minnesota's Iron Range at Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. Interactive exhibits, events, and more await!
History
The trolley's home, the Minnesota Discovery Center, is a 660-acre museum complex that opened in 1977 as the Iron Range Interpretive Center with 34 exhibits, built to celebrate the immigrants — Italians, Finns, and Yugoslavs among them — who built Minnesota's Iron Range mining region. Renamed Ironworld USA in 1984, it took its present name in 2009. Originally a state-run attraction, the facility passed to the non-profit Ironworld Development Corporation, formed in 2003 to manage it, with the transition complete in 2007. The grounds occupy the old Glen Mine property outside Chisholm, abandoned mine shafts and all — shifting ground forced a multimillion-dollar foundation reckoning in 2004 — and today the campus takes in a museum with two floors of exhibits on labor history, geology, mining, and immigration, a renovated 1905 Hill's Finn Boarding House, a research center and library, a park, and the trolley line that circles the old mine workings.
The Trains
The ride here is a 1920s trolley, which travels a picturesque 2.4-mile railway winding around the Pillsbury mine pit and the Glen mine before letting riders off at the Wilpen Train Depot.
Nearby
The trolley runs at the Minnesota Discovery Center just outside Chisholm, a St. Louis County city of about 4,800 known as "The Heart of the Iron Range" for its spot in the middle of the Mesabi Iron Range. Founded by mining investor Archibald Chisholm and incorporated in 1901, the town grew fast on mining work and a rail line to Duluth, was leveled by a forest fire in 1908, and rebuilt itself with more than seventy fireproof buildings within a year.
Where to Stay
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Rent a Car
Most heritage railroads sit well off the interstate. Picking up a rental at the nearest airport is usually the easiest way in.
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Book tours & activities nearby
Pre-book guided tours and things to do around the area.
Bookings made through these links support usatrainrides at no extra cost to you.
More in Minnesota
All train rides in Minnesota →Train Types in Minnesota
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