Iron Man Statue

Chisholm, Minnesota, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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The Iron Man is a statue of a miner in Chisholm, Minnesota, by sculptor Jack E. Anderson of Michigan. The Minnesota Historical Society gives its height as 85 feet. It was dedicated on 4 July 1987 as a memorial to Iron Range miners.

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Iron Man Statue

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Approximate location · 47.489° N, 92.884° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

The Iron Man in Chisholm is a monument to the miners of Minnesota's Iron Range, and its making took far longer than its builders expected. The Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia says the memorial stands eighty-five feet tall. Its sculptor, Jack E. Anderson of Michigan, titled it "Emergence of Man Through Steel".

A miner monument was first proposed in 1958, the Duluth News Tribune reports, but the state's Centennial Commission rejected it. A fund began in 1973, a groundbreaking followed in 1976, and the statue took more than a decade further to finish. MNopedia says the committee chose Anderson for his realist style and that disagreements between him and committee members delayed the work. In 1986 the statue was moved to land across from Ironworld USA, helped by a grant from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board.

It was dedicated on 4 July 1987. About 1,500 people attended, and Governor Rudy Perpich spoke. Plans for an elevator, restaurant and gift shop in the base were dropped for lack of funds. Names of local residents and families who donated are listed on the base.

A granite plaque with text by Veda Ponikvar calls the statue "the third largest free-standing memorial in the United States", and MNopedia says it is broadly advertised as the third-tallest free-standing sculpture in the country. At the dedication the city attorney described it as a memorial rather than a tourist attraction.

In October 2023 the Duluth News Tribune reported that the light in the miner's helmet, dark for decades, had been replaced with an LED bulb by the city's public works department at a cost of about $900.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A memorial statue of a miner on a mound at Chisholm, on land across from the former Ironworld USA. Names of donors are listed on the base, and a granite plaque carries the memorial's text. The helmet light has been replaced with an LED bulb, according to the Duluth News Tribune in October 2023.

ACCESS

Chisholm, Minnesota, on the road named Veda Ponikvar Boulevard, across from the site formerly known as Ironworld USA. It is an outdoor memorial.

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World's Largest Hockey Stick

Eveleth, Minnesota

The City of Eveleth says its hockey stick weighs 10,000 pounds (5 tons) and is 110 feet long. The city places it in Hockey Plaza and says it was made by Sentinel Structures, Inc. of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and arrived on 18 June 2002, taking the original spot of the 1995 stick. The city bills it as the world's largest free-standing hockey stick. The city's page on the stick is undated and the Duluth News Tribune account is from 2019.

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26 km away

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