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MAR+x APR, 1978 Page 38 satis ~" the whaleback patents. For cargoes the whalebacks had downbound prairie wheat and Gogebic ore from Hoyt and Colby's mines and upbound coal. In 1892 American Steel Barge Company struck a bargain to Carry ore coming from the new Mesabi Range northwest of Duluth. The range had just been opened up by Leonidas Weert ail his <a brothers and cousins. Mesabi ore was absurdly cheap to mine, scooped up in open pits with steamshovels. On the older iron ranges, the mines were under- ground shafts. However, Mesabi ore was too powdery to use in existing blast furnaces, for it blew out the stack and settled on the country- side. Until the blast furnaces were adapted, the ore seemed worthless. The Merritts brought their Mesabi empire into production with shaky financing carried along by the boom ~ 9 ae = = Four Whalebacks, #104 (left foreground) #103, (top left), #105, (right foreground) and JOHN B. TREVOR (top right), all in the Soo Lock together. McDONALD Coll./DOSSIN MUSEUM in ore mining ventures. Railroads running near the Mesabi were not interested in their mines, so the Merritts had to build their own rail spurs to get out the ore. The family vowed to run their rails all seventy miles to ore docks of their own. To cement relations with the Merritts, American Steel Barge officials per- suaded Rockefeller to put up four hundred thousand dollars toward this Duluth, Missabe & Northern Railroad. In normal times the Merritts' wish to control their own transportation would have answered favorite maxims of Standard Oil. But the financial Panic of 1893 caught the Merritts badly overextended, and contractors to be paid were still building their railroad. The market for ore dropped away in the panic, especially for the Merritts' powdery stuff. To save his railroad investment, Rockefeller