Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
From the record
“The Pioneer Mine was an underground iron mine in Ely, Minnesota, United States, in operation from 1889 to 1967. It is one of only two such mines on the Vermilion Range whose above-ground structures are still standing, the other being the Soudan Mine.”
Wikipedia article Pioneer Mine, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 126 National Register listings published here for St. Louis County · listed in 1978 · category: District.
National Register reference number.78003127- 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
143 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 143 fires within 5 miles of Pioneer Mine Buildings and A Headframe
between 1992 and 2020, burning about 242 acres in total. 7 started naturally. 16 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
Debris and open burning
38
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
26
Recreation and ceremony
21
Arson/incendiarism
16
Power generation/transmission/distribution
15
Misuse of fire by a minor
11
Natural
7
Fireworks
4
Smoking
3
Equipment and vehicle use
2
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
11 workings within 5 miles of Pioneer Mine Buildings and A Headframe: 7 past producers, 3 producers, 1 unknown.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Gold, Zinc, Lead, Copper. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Ely, the town this property stands in, in 22 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 4 flash flood, 3 hail, 1 lightning.
The reports record 3 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Photos and measurements were received of the downed trees in Whiteside Park. The two largest trees were elms with one uprooted that was 1 foot in diameter with the second being 27 inches in diameter and was completely snapped about 8 feet up. The Blueberry/Arts Fest was ongoing in the park at the time of the storm and the storm caused significant damage to temporary tents and booths along with the items for sale in the tents/booths. The remainder of the festival was subsequently canceled due to the damage.
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
6 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.
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.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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