Mesabi Trail: Virginia to Kinney

Today seemed like a good day for a bicycle ride, and so I made the drive down to Virginia, Minnesota and hopped on the Mesabi Trail. Back in June I rode from Virginia, east to Eveleth. Today I would be headed in the opposite direction to the trailhead outside the town of Kinney. I rode through a small section of town and crossed US Highway 53, then closely paralleled a road for a bit before setting off on a separate, dedicated bike path. Goldenrod

and other fall wildflowers decorated the trail sides. Soon enough I found myself within the city limits of the depressing little town of Mountain Iron.

Many of the roads off to the side of the trail seemed to dead end

and an entire neighborhood is littered with abandoned, boarded-up homes. Is the mining industry taking over and forcing the closures? This seems to be the case as an online search found the following about Mountain Iron's Parkville neighborhood: "Minntac now is planning expansion of its east pit, which will take over the city’s Parkville neighborhood to the south. Skalko said the company has bought out about half the homeowners to date, but with the industry downturn has slowed down its purchasing efforts."

I made my way along an old railroad grade for a section of trail,

 passed a water-filled mining pit

and made my way to downtown. The city's mining heritage is on full display here. There's a monument to the discovery of iron ore,

a statue of Leonidas Merritt who claimed that the area was home to a "Mountain of Iron" and gave the small town its name.

There is also a park with an old steam engine once used to haul ore,

a bucket used to move it

and the tire of one of the trucks used to transport the ore out of the mines.
There is also a view of another mining pit with what appears to be a waterfall cascading into it.

I relaxed at the park for a bit and then hit the trail, headed further west. I passed through a section of town that was once a neighborhood. There was even a sign marking it as the Mountain Iron Original Townsite.

Today it is nothing more than abandoned roads and concrete slabs that were once the site of people's homes and dreams.

The trail soon paralleled US Highway 169.

I made my way to the Kinney trailhead where I rested a bit

 and then turned around for the return ride to Virginia.