Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range Railway.

The Duluth and Iron Range Railway Company (D&IR) was incorporated on December 21, 1874, by an Ontonagon, Michigan-based syndicate headed by Peter Mitchell that was exploring for iron ore on the eastern end of what would eventually become the Mesabi Iron Range. The organizers obtained a land grant from the Minnesota legislature. The company's charter called for the construction of a railroad line from a point near present-day Babbitt to Duluth, Minnesota by February 1879. The Mitchell group, however, never built any trackage.

Meanwhile, Charlemagne Tower of Philadelphia and his associates had begun acquiring iron ore lands on the Vermillion Iron Range, especially in the vicinity of present-day Tower and Soudan, Minnesota. Most of the desired ore properties were assembled into Tower's Minnesota Iron Company by the early 1880s. Tower needed a railroad over which to transport his ore to Lake Superior ports, and in 1882 gained control of the as-yet-unbuilt D&IR and its land grant. The terminus of the proposed line was changed from Duluth to Agate Bay (Two Harbors), Minnesota, and construction was begun in 1883. The company's line from Two Harbors to Soudan was completed in July 1884, and the first iron ore shipment from mines he developed at Soudan arrived at Two Harbors on July 31.

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