The Iron Ore Heritage Trail is a 47-mile (76 km) bicycle and hiking trail that presents a look at some of the key sites of human and geological heritage on the Marquette Iron Range. Trailheads are located at the Marquette Welcome Center in Marquette, and in Republic west of Marquette. The trail, which has a comparative change in elevation of 1,000 feet (300 m) (steep for the U.S. Midwest) covers much of the length of the Marquette Iron Range, a historically and commercially significant range of hematite and magnetite mined for more than 150 years as iron ore. The trail celebrates the geological and human heritage of the Marquette Iron Range, which dominated U.S. iron ore production from approximately 1880 until about 1900. Many of the buildings visible from the trail date back to this peri