EVELETH—Longtime Erie/LTV employee Karl Oberstar Jr. wrote the following for a story in the June 2026 MINE edition of the Mesabi Tribune: “Thank you for allowing us to tell the story of some 800 former Steelworkers of ERIE/LTV coworkers. I started a gathering of former employees of this Taconite Mine about 3 years ago at The Rink restaurant in Eveleth. They have a private meeting area for us to use. We started with a dozen coworkers and the next year a few more, then this year was kind of special.”
Oberstar continued. “This year we observed our 25th anniversary of plant closure. Wow…25 years has passed us by, and lots of changes have taken place in our personal lives. I forgot to say, I believe our employees were much like any other workplace, we were family. Our workplace was our second home, thus our second family. That’s why it was important to start to get together and mingle in a CRIB-like atmosphere. If you worked in the mine, you would know what a CRIB is.
“This year we had 34 coworkers salaried/hourly show up. After welcoming everyone to this gathering, I asked each one as we went around the room to pass or tell us how much time they served and what they did at the Mine and what the past 25 years away since closure has been like for them. Then the entire 34 went around the room and started talking to old friends/coworkers. To me it was a very touching moving sight to see and exactly what I intended to accomplish. Because sad to say, it could be the last time we see each other again. Lately so many of our Friends/Coworkers have been dying, increasing steadily and nothing we can do about it.
“Lastly, we the former salaried and hourly United States Steelworkers of Erie/LTV Steel Mining Company have survived a January 5, 2001, closure some 25 years ago. When we came to work on that day.to work but were told to gather up our belongings/tools and leave NOW, a large caravan of cars left out the gate that day with their stuff to come back no more. A few had to stay to properly close the doors. Thank You Very Much.”
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I, Karl Oberstar Jr., started at Erie Mining Company on June 10, 1970, and ended on January 5, 2001, and went on 6 months unemployment, then officially retired on July 31, 2001, with 31 plus years of service. My Father retired many years earlier with 35-plus years of service.
I started out as a Laborer, with a wage of $2.89 (if my memory serves me right). I worked for 4 years in operations performing a variety of job assignments (truck driver, cat skinner, drill helper, plant labor, coarse crusher operator sequence). Then I went to apprenticeship for maintenance mechanic in 1974/75. We eventually were upgraded to millwright status in the late ’80s early ’90s, so 27 years of my 31 were served in Maintenance Department, 20 years in the Pellet Plant was my longest stay of one location, final last 2 years in the General Shops. I have to add that I also served 11 years as Mayor of the City of Gilbert.
Then after the mine closed and retirement, then a final blow came to all of us former employees—LTV Filed for Bankruptcy Protection and those who could retire with over 30 years got our pensions cut to close to 50% and placed under the PBGC (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation or aka Government Pension). Under my Pension (before the Chapter 11 or 7 bankruptcy occurred), my life was good even not being of Social Security age yet, but with this massive cut, with medical gone as well, it put me back out into the job market. Note: But in 1992 I fell off a deck platform 9 ft off the concrete floor, backwards landing headfirst, causing a back injury to myself as well as 6 months off of work. God Bless I am still alive and not paralyzed. This handicap disqualified me from getting another job in the other local mines. I eventually got a sit-down job behind a computer at Sykes (2 yrs) and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota (Virginia 14.5 years as a Claims Examiner). Then at age 66, I retired and enrolled in Social Security. I also am currently manager of Quad City Food Shelf for the last 8-plus years.
I have left out the story between all the struggles my family and I went through, the worries of how we were going to manage that this PERMANENT MINE CLOSURE put us through, eventually for me, and maybe others, caused me a divorce because of all the stress and tensions of so many things changing in our family lives, eventually it was too much.
But now after 25 years later, I can say BY THE GRACE OF GOD, LIFE COULD BE BETTER AND IT ALSO COULD BE WORSE, BUT I CAN SAY TRULY FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, ALL IS GOOD BECAUSE GOD IS A GOOD GOD. AMEN and AMEN.
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Two other Erie/LTV employees wrote:
Larry Barg worked 14 years at LTV Steel Mining in the radio shop.
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LeRoy Sprink worked for 43 years on the line crew. He said, “I worked at the Lake Mine and then Erie right out of high school, then LTV until retirement. It was a good life for raising a family.” He and his wife Alta live a happy married life on Loon Lake.