Qualla: Hill-Annex Mine State Park

Hill-Annex Mine State Park: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board bought the Hill-Annex Mine for one dollar. That price made a kind of sense: the mine had been stripped, the ore exhausted, the equipment silent. What the board received was a colossal hole in the earth near Calumet, Minnesota, ringed by weathered buildings dating to the early twentieth century. They turned the community club into a museum and started giving tours. The Minnesota Legislature made it a state park in 1988. Then, in 2024, the Department of Natural Resources closed the park permanently -- because the iron ore was not exhausted after all, and mining would return to Hill-Annex. A place that became a park because a mine died is now dying as a park so the mine can live again.

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hill-Annex Mine State Park: Sixty-Three Million Tons

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The land was first leased for mineral exploration in 1892, part of the frenzy that followed the discovery of iron ore across the Mesabi Range in northeastern Minnesota. A second lease came in 1900, and active mining began in 1913. Over its operational life, Hill-Annex produced 63...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

Hill-Annex Mine State Park: Raptors in the Rock

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rylan Bachman, CC BY 4.0. Mining stripped away more than iron ore. It exposed the Coleraine Formation, a Cretaceous-era geological deposit found only in Minnesota. In 2014, the Hill Annex Paleontology Project began as a volunteer-led study through the Science Museum of Minnesota, later moving to the Minne...

Image: Rylan Bachman | CC BY 4.0

Hill-Annex Mine State Park: Nature Reclaims a Pit

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. After mining ceased and the site became a park, conservationists began adding vegetation to rehabilitate the scarred landscape. The effort paid off. Grouse, deer, coyotes, timber wolves, and black bears took up residence in the recovering terrain. Raptors returned too -- not the ...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hill-Annex Mine State Park: The Park That Went Back to Work

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bradinator33, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources took over the site in 1991, but the arrangement always carried an asterisk. When MNDNR assumed responsibility, they noted the transfer was "consistent with the historical expectation that mining would return to this site." In 2024, th...

Image: Bradinator33 | CC BY-SA 4.0