Iron Man gazes down on region rich in mining history.

Huge Iron Man Statue

Chisholm, Minnesota

In the heart of Minnesota's Mesabi Range mining country, a gargantuan likeness of an 1880s miner balances on a spherical framework of rusted corten steel.

Titled "The Emergence of Man Through Steel," the sculpture was designed by artist Jack E. Anderson -- who had also sculpted the large Shrine of the Snowshoe Priest -- and dedicated on July 4, 1987. The whole structure is 86 feet high, claimed to be the third largest free-standing memorial in the United States.

The 36-foot-tall brass and copper iron miner is a tribute to the "Iron Men" of yore, when metal mining boomed in the region.

If this gleaming, brass-colored miner had been waving his shovel, he'd be taller than Birmingham's Vulcan the Iron Man! From a spectacle perspective, the immense load of steel beneath him makes the miner appear... a little dinky. Yet he is huge! There was supposed to be a staircase to let one pose beneath his feet, but an iron industry recession in the 1980s dried up funding and nixed those plans.

Cross-eyed, the miner stares down at the McDonald's strategically located across the street.

A plaque near the Iron Man's base says the statue is "a tribute to the Mesabi, Vermilion, Cuyuna and Gogebic Ranges' men of steel, who carved out of a sylvan wilderness the iron ore that made America the industrial giant of the world. They shall live forever!"