Ely Arts & Heritage Center

Help Ely Arts & Heritage Center (Formerly Ely Greenstone) with its improvement grants for Ely's Historic Pioneer Mine Facilities!

Since 1999, Ely Arts & Heritage Center, has been a steady resource on the arts scene! It hosts the ever popular Greenstone Arts Children's Art Camp and Ely Community Resource Youth Art Camps, a Watercolor Art Show, and other Artist Events during the year that generate interest and participation from far and wide. 

These classes and other Area and Community events are held at the Historic 1903 Miners Dry House at 105 Miners Lake Landing Road on the north side of Ely’s Miners Lake, adjacent to the Trezona Trail. 

If you haven’t been to the Ely Arts & Heritage Center at the Pioneer Mine recently,  you may not know the exciting things happening there. Thousands of visitors were greeted at the historic Pioneer Mine “A Shaft” House at 401 North Pioneer Road (across from the Grand Ely Lodge) and thousands more see the signs along the Trezona Trail which tell the story of Ely’s mining importance to America.

The Shaft House Museum is generally open May to September, providing a free introduction to Ely’s mining history by men who lived it! You may even find one of the volunteers in the area who would be more than happy to show you the facility immediately.

The stained glass windows installed at the Ely Public Library depicting scenes of Ely's history were crafted in the Miners Dry by a skilled group of local Ely area stained glass Artists.

We continue to host Wedding Receptions, Prom, Alumni Reunions, Graduations, Family Gatherings, the Ely All Class Reunion and the Tomassoni ALS Bike Tour headquartered at the historic and unique Miners Dry Building. It is a venue like no other.

The backbone of the Ely Arts & Heritage Center and Greenstone projects continue to be the Volunteers who devote hundreds of hours to welcome visitors, carry out programs, and host the Pioneer Mine "A" Shaft House Museum tours.

Your membership, donations, and support are vital to keeping the Ely Arts & Heritage Center vibrant for years to come. This is Your Legacy!  We Sincerely Thank YOU for empowering the vision.

The Pioneer Mine has been on the National Historic Register since 1978. Now operated as the Ely Arts & Heritage Center. The buildings welcome visitors Mid-May through Mid-October. The facilities are managed by Ely Arts & Heritage Center (formerly Ely Greenstone Public Art) and owned by the City of Ely.

As we move along, the Captain’s Dry and Boiler House had a major roof renovation in the Fall of 2021. That was made possible through fundraising donations by you, by generous contractors, our supporters and those wanting to preserve Ely's history.

The building's interior has had a major cleaning from top to bottom during 2022 by our Volunteers as we move forward to restore the windows and rehabilitate this historic structure.

We are anticipating installing a new Main Electrical Service Entrance Panel and service outlets in the building as we move forward on this project.

Several of our Board Members and other Volunteers are replacing donated Plexiglas window pane material in the original 1910 steel window frames in the Captain's Dry. Original looks are starting to reappear!

There’s also other critical work to be done Stabilizing and Reconstruction of the Shaft House Retaining Wall. We have recently had some preliminary design work on the Retaining Wall Reconstruction.

During the Spring of 2023, we installed a new sign on the Pioneer Road frontage, provided through a generous donation from U.S. Steel - Minntac in Mt. Iron, MN.

We had two 10-foot diameter Bicycle-Spoke type Sheave Wheels fabricated and mounted in the Turn Sheave Platform in front of the "A" Shaft Head Frame in the Fall of 2023.. 

We improved lighting options in the Dry this Spring of 2024, we are planning a sound system upgrade, and more.

This past Summer of 2024, through the efforts of an Ely Alumni, Renee Skube Beaumier, we acquired a vintage 1948 Iron Ore car with prep work by the City of Ely and Donations by Canadian National Rail, North Shore Track Services, Radotich, Inc, and Louis Leustek and Sons/Forest Concrete. (Full Story in the 6-28-24 Ely Echo newspaper).

We finalized the design and began construction of the Miners Memorial dedicated to the Miners who lost their lives here in the Ely mines digging the rich Hematite Iron Ore from deep underground, and to those immigrant Iron Ore Miners who came to the area and built the City of Ely, helped win two World Wars, and contributed to the building of the United States.

The Miners Memorial had concrete poured and construction of the Black Granite base completed in the Spring/Summer of 2024. Tentatively the Granite Headstones will be engraved with names of Miners killed while working the Mines and be installed and dedicated in 2025.

Help the Volunteers at Ely Arts & Heritage to make these events and facility renovations happen. Donate today.

We Thank YOU for Your Much Appreciated Donations!

Updated: 11-14-2024