Photograph of Longyear Drill Site — Photograph by McGhiever, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

E. J. Longyear First Diamond Drill Site

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

From the record

“The Longyear Drill Site is a historic mineral exploration site in Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, United States. In 1890 the first core samples were taken there from what would become known as the Mesabi Range, one of the world's richest iron ore deposits.”
Wikipedia article Longyear Drill Site, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 126 National Register listings published here for St. Louis County · listed in 1977 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Longyear, E. J., First Diamond Drill Site - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. Off Co. Hwy. 110, Hoyt Lake, 55750
When was it listed? July 1977
Category. structure
City. Hoyt Lakes city
National Register reference number. 77001526 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

50 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 50 fires within 5 miles of E. J. Longyear First Diamond Drill Site between 1994 and 2020, burning about 1,438 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Railroad operations and maintenance	20
Recreation and ceremony	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Arson/incendiarism	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Debris and open burning	3
Natural	2
Smoking	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 2005	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Superior National Forest	SUFFOLK ROAD FIRE
13 September 2012	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Superior National Forest	COLBY LAKE
1 September 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 August 2003	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Superior National Forest	ST.LOUIS FIRE
1 August 2001	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Superior National Forest	DMIR MP49.5
1 August 2001	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Superior National Forest	DMIR MP 49.8
21 July 2001	Natural	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
2 July 1999	Natural	under an acre	Superior National Forest	LTV #1

Every fire recorded in St. Louis County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 47 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 47 workings within 5 miles of E. J. Longyear First Diamond Drill Site: 30 past producers, 9 producers, 3 unknowns, 3 plants. 12 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Nickel, Copper, Titanium, Metal, Iron, Manganese, Aluminum, Silica, Phosphorus-Phosphates, Water, Free. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Longear	Iron, Titanium, Metal, Nickel, Copper	Unknown	Ilmenite, Magnetite, Chalcopyrite, Bornite, Cubanite, Pyrrhotite, Pentlandite, Pyrite
Partridge River Prospect	Copper	Prospect
Section 22 Deposit	Titanium, Metal, Iron, Nickel, Copper	Unknown	Ilmenite, Magnetite, Chalcopyrite, Cubanite, Pentlandite, Pyrrhotite
Stephens Mine	Iron, Manganese, Aluminum, Silica, Phosphorus-Phosphates, Water, Free	Producer	1903
Wet Legs Deposit	PGE, Nickel, Copper	Unknown	Cubanite, Chalcopyrite, Bornite, Pentlandite, Pyrrhotite
Wyman Creek deposit	Nickel, Copper, Palladium, Platinum	Prospect	Bornite, Chalcopyrite, Cubanite, Pentlandite, Pyrrhotite
Adriatic Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1906
Adriatic Mine	Iron	Past Producer
Erie I Pellet Plant	Iron	Plant
Erie Ii Pellet Plant	Iron	Plant

Every working recorded in St. Louis County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Elias and Lisi Aho Historic Farmstead	7.0 miles	1990
	Anna and Mikko Pyhala Farm	8.0 miles	2003

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 77001526 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
St. Louis County	All 126 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.