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.

Control of the D&IR was acquired from the Tower group by Illinois Steel Company interests in 1887, a syndicate that included Henry H. Porter, head of the Illinois Steel Company; Marshall Field; Cyrus McCormick; John D. and William Rockefeller; and Jay C. Morse, of Union Steel Company. The railroad became a part of United States Steel Corporation in 1901 when Federal Steel Company, successor to Illinois Steel Company, was acquired by a group of capitalists headed by Elbert H. Gary and J.P. Morgan, who combined it with Carnegie Steel Company to form United States Steel Corporation. In 1927 the D&IR served iron mines located at Aurora, Babbitt, Biwabik, Colby, Ely, Eveleth, Largo, McComber, McKinley, Mariska, Pettit, Sparta, Tower Junction (Soudan), Virginia, and Winton, Minnesota.

The Duluth Missabe and Northern Railway Company (DM&N) was incorporated on February 11, 1891 by the Merritt interests to build a railroad line connecting their iron ore properties located at present-day Mountain Iron and Biwabik, Minnesota and Duluth. Construction of the railroad from Stony Brook Junction on the Duluth and Winnipeg Railway to Mountain Iron was completed in October of 1892. The first shipment from Mountain Iron over the line was made late in October of 1892. The final leg of the journey from Stony Brook to Duluth (about 26 miles) was made over the D&W.

The Merritts lost control of the DM&N in 1894 to the Rockefeller interests, and it became a segment of their Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines Company. John D. Rockefeller leased all his iron ore properties, including the DM&N, to Carnegie Steel Corporation in 1896. The DM&N became a part of United States Steel Corporation in 1901 when a group of capitalists headed by Elbert H. Gary and J.P. Morgan bought Carnegie's steel company and combined it with their holdings in the Federal Steel Company to form the United States Steel Corporation. In 1927 the DM&N served iron mines located at Eveleth, Virginia, Mountain Iron, Buhl, Shenango, Chisholm, Hibbing, Arcturus, and Coleraine, Minnesota.

The Duluth and Iron Range Railroad Company and the Duluth, Missabe and Northern, both owned by United States Steel Corporation, were operated as one system from 1901 to 1937, although they were not formally merged. The DM&N leased the properties of the D&IR in early 1930. On July 1, 1937 the DM&N and the Spirit Lake Transfer Railway Company consolidated to form the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway Company (DM&IR). In March 1938 the property and assets of the D&IR and the Interstate Transfer Railway Company were transferred to the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range. Interstate Transfer was subsequently dissolved on June 28, 1938, and the D&IR was dissolved July 7, 1938. The surviving company, The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range, had two separate operating divisions: The Missabe Division, operating the former DM&N trackage on the western portion of the system, and the Iron Range Division, operating the former D&IR trackage on the eastern portion of the system.

Soft high-grade iron ore began to run out on the Vermilion and Missabe iron ranges in the mid-1950s, and at that time development of northeastern Minnesota's taconite industry began in earnest. With the passage of the Taconite Amendment in 1963 the construction of taconite plants along the DM&IR proceeded with the Eveleth Taconite Company's plant at Forbes, Minnesota coming into operation around 1965 and United States Steel Corporation's large Minntac taconite pellet plant at Mountain Iron beginning operation in October 1967.

In 1988 the DM&IR, a wholly-owned subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation, was sold to Transtar Inc., Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Transtar was a holding company owned in part by the Blackstone Group and USX Corporation (formerly known as United States Steel Corporation). In 2001 the railroad became part of Great Lakes Transportation, a privately-held transportation holding company with principal operations in railroad freight and transportation, Great Lakes shipping, and inland river barging.

In 2002 the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway was said to be the largest iron ore handling railroad in North America, with 212 miles of track. Its primary mission was to move ore from Minnesota's Missabe Range taconite plants to DM&IR dock facilities at Duluth and Two Harbors, or to connecting railroads at Superior, Wisconsin.

From the guide to the Company records., 1874-1984., (Minnesota Historical Society)