The 1,860 foot long structure was built in 1913 by the Northern Pacific Railway to load freighter ships with high-grade iron ore, which was mined in the Cuyuna Iron Range, about ninety miles west of Duluth, Minnesota. Mining peaked in 1953 and ore dock operations ceased in 1970. Today, taconite, an inferior grade of ore, gets processed and loaded onto freighters at an operational ore dock, about a half mile to the East.