The main shaft at the Tower Soudan mine north of Aurora drops down half a mile through solid rock. The mine is a state park now, and visitors can still ride the old elevator cars that lowered the miners into the darkness. The air is damp. Water drips from the ceiling of the car, and runs down the window in tiny rivers of dissolved red dust. Finally, the car slows and stops.
Tunnels lead off into the blackness.
Wilfred Leinonen is a guide at the mine. His great grandfather worked here. My grandfather came in 1900. And he wrote back to his wife in Finland that in America there's gold under every rock. Cause he got paid by the ton and every time he picked up a rock and put it in the car, that's money.