Since becoming a state in 1858 Minnesota has had a long history in the mining and timber industries. With the discovery of iron ore in 1866 the mining industry across the Mesabi Range in northern Minnesota was started. In the city of Virginia around1909 the Rainy Lake Company wood mill opened. It operated for over 20 years, becoming the largest white pine mill in the world.These industries brought numerous Scandinavian immigrants to work and homestead in the area.

The regional history of the mining industry is show cased at the Soudan Underground Mine State Park, the Minnesota Discovery Center and the Minnesota Museum of Mining. Each point of interest is within a short drive from Scott's Peaceful Valley.

Soudan Underground Mine State Park This Park is home to Minnesota's oldest iron ore mine where you can learn about how mining shaped the history and culture of the Iron Range. Explore the dry house, drill shop, crusher house and engine house, and take the boardwalk past one of the deepest open mine pits. Take an underground mine tour and travel a half mile beneath the earth to the deepest area that was mined. Additionally, you can tour a new high energy physics lab that was built to study of subatomic particles.

Minnesota Discovery Center The Minnesota Discovery Center provides historic exhibits of mining methods, equipment, and the regions immigrant people and culture. By examining the displays outlying and showing mining artifacts, mining methods and regional geology will help illuminate the spirit of the immigrant people and their descendants.There is also a train tour that takes you around the largest iron ore mine in the world. The magnitude and beauty of this manmade wonder is a must see site.

Minnesota Museum of Mining The Minnesota Museum of Mining is the only museum of its kind in the country, dedicated to preserving the history of the Iron Mining Industry in Minnesota as well as telling the story of the men and women who made a life working on the Iron Range. The Minnesota Museum of Mining serves to educate visitors about the history of mining in Minnesota, and illustrates the life of ordinary people, mostly immigrant families, from the earliest years of European settlement and mining in Chisholm. The museum and surrounding grounds provide historic exhibits of mining methods, equipment, and the regions immigrant people and culture. Minnesota Museum of Mining

The main highways in our area are interlaced with gravel roadways that are part of the original rural township structure or related to the timber industry. Driving through the rural township you will observe the results of generations of families that homesteaded the area, carved out the wilderness. The timber industry was driven by the high demand for lumber as our country expanded and grew in population. With a steady demand for wood products, State forestry roads have been built to provide continued access to the vast forests that provide the timber for wood and paper. As you explore and travel these rural roadways to can see some of the original logging camps and narrow gauge railroad beds. We can assist and provide driving directions to some of these historic sites.