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The Iron Man (Iron Ore Miner) Memorial just off U. S. Highway 169 to
the west of Chisholm. Originally conceived as an idea in 1947, the memorial
was compete in June 1987 and dedicated on July 4, 1987.
The Iron Man firgure and the memorial's base, designed by the sculptor Jack
Anderson of Lake Linden, Mich., is 85 feet high and weighs 150 tons. It
is the third highest free standing memorial in the United States of America,
Only the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis
are larger. The Iron Man himself is made of copper brazed with brass, while
the base is made of corten steel, which gradually turns to a deep redish-brown
color. The configuration on each side of the base represent the various
shapes of steel forged in American steel mills. Beneath the base lies a
mound of crushed rock and taconite taken from Minnesota's three iron ranges.
An engraved tabletop memorial plaque with the inspirational poem "The
Emergence of Man Through Steel" by Veda Ponikvar stands nearby.
The Iron Man's head is six feet high; his face depicts a man in his late
twenties or thirties. His miner's helmet is 50 inches long and 24 inches
high. A sodium vapor lamp rest inside the candle atop the helmet. The Iron
Man's shoulders measure 11 feet across. The distance from shoulder to waist
is 9.5 feet. His pants measure 17.5 feet from the waist to the cuff. The
waist band is 228 inches. His solid boots are six feet long, 57 inches high,
and two feet wide. Each bootlace is 80 inches long. His shovel weighs 400
pounds.