Ely Arts & Heritage Center

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

With a previous matching Grant, Ely Arts & Heritage Center installed an acoustical system which now allows the capability at the Miners Dry House to provide music and spoken performances with good sound quality.

Your contributions helped to meet this match and to complete this project.

Since 1999, Ely Arts & Heritage Center, has been a steady resource on the arts scene! It hosts a variety of Youth art classes and Artist events during the year. These classes and other Area and Community events are held at the Historical 1903 Miners Dry House on the north side of Ely’s Miners Lake, at 105 Miners Lake Landing Road, adjacent to the Trezona Trail.

If you haven’t been to the Ely Arts & Heritage Center at Pioneer Mine this year,  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 saw the signs along the Trezona Trail which tell the story of Ely’s mining importance to America. The Shaft House is 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 ever popular Greenstone Arts Children’s and Ely Community Resource Youth Art Camps, Watercolor Art Show, and other Art Shows generate interest and participation far and wide. The 1903 Miners Dry is the Venue that hosts these events.

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, Alumni Reunions, Graduation and Family Gatherings, and other events such as the MN ATV Association's State Convention at the historic and unique Miners Dry Building at 105 Miners Lake Landing Road. It is a venue like no other.

We are planning additional improved lighting options, a sound system upgrade, and more.

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 facility 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 May through 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.

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

We are trying to Fundraise and anticipating installing a New Main Electrical Service Entrance Panel and service outlets to 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.

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

We remain in the process of acquiring funding for these much needed critical improvement projects and appreciate your support.

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

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

Along with those projects, we continue to work on finalizing design work and construction of the Miners Memorial dedicated to the Miners who lost their lives here in Ely digging the rich Hematite Iron Ore from deep underground, and to the 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 area was staked and concrete poured for construction to tentatively begin in the Spring of 2024.

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: 11-15-2023