Keewatin, MN

Keewatin is an Itasca County city on U.S. 169, with 984 residents at the 2020 census. The road ties it to Nashwauk and the rest of the Iron Range, while the Keetac taconite mines sit to the north. Students from the area attend Nashwauk-Keewatin High School. Keewatin's modern map is a mining map: pits, rail, haul routes, homes, and the city streets all grew around iron ore and the work it created.

The first settlers came for lumber, but mining gave Keewatin its lasting shape. The Stevenson Mine began operating in 1900, and the city's old mining story still has a physical place in the park. A Hanna Mining train, an old police gazebo, and a vertical log cabin sit among the park's memorials and pavilion. Keewatin is the kind of Iron Range place where the industrial past is not tucked away in a museum building; it is parked beside the ballfields and city streets. U.S. 169, the mine, the school, and the park make the town's map easy to read.