Giants of the Great Lakes: Duluth's Historic Ore Docks
NARRATOR: Welcome to Duluth, Minnesota! Located on the western tip of Lake Superior, this bustling port city has been the heartbeat of American shipping for over a century.
MAYA: Look at those gigantic concrete and steel structures extending into the water! They look like massive bridges to nowhere. What are those?
DOCKWORKER: Those are Duluth's famous ore docks! In the late 1800s, rich deposits of iron ore were discovered nearby in Minnesota's Mesabi Range. Iron ore is the raw material used to make steel. To build America's growing cities, railroads, and factories, millions of tons of ore needed to travel east across the Great Lakes.
CAPTAIN: That is where the shipping fleet came in! But loading thousands of tons of heavy red dirt onto ships with simple shovels would take days. Engineers needed a faster, smarter way. So, they designed these towering ore docks.
MAYA: How does a dock that high above the water load a giant ship?
DOCKWORKER: It all relies on the power of gravity! Railroad cars packed with iron ore pull onto tracks built right along the very top of the dock, high above the lake.
NARRATOR: Beneath the train tracks are hundreds of large steel pockets, called storage bins, built directly into the dock structure.
- freighter:
- A large ship designed to carry bulk cargo across bodies of water.
- gravity:
- The natural force that pulls objects toward the center of the earth.
- chutes:
- Slanted troughs or tubes through which materials slide down to a lower level.
- hatches:
- Openings or trapdoors in the floor, bottom, or deck of a vehicle or vessel.
- taconite:
- A type of iron ore processed into small round pellets for easy shipping.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1Where is Duluth located, and why has it been important to American shipping?
- 2What natural resource was discovered in Minnesota's Mesabi Range in the late 1800s?
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About this reader's theater passage for Upper Elementary
“Giants of the Great Lakes: Duluth's Historic Ore Docks” is a reader's theater reading passage about Duluth Shipping History and Ore Docks, written for Upper Elementary. It takes about 3 minutes to read (422 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.