CROSBY — A quiet park nestled in the woods by a lake provides a place to reflect, walk and experience history.

Names on the boardwalks link the present to the past . The names of 41 miners who lost their lives in 1924 when the underground iron ore mine flooded within minutes and the seven who made it to the surface are there with each step on the 450-foot boardwalk bridge.

For years, while the story was part of the fabric of the area, the land and the site of Minnesota’s largest mining disaster was hard to access.

In 2007, Crow Wing County commissioners looked at a concept plan for the Milford Mine Memorial Park. Work was planned in phases with the goal of identifying the historic site, creating walking paths and opportunities for recreation at the site. Phase one was completed in 2010. The next year the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the following years, the county added signs, a picnic shelter, cooking grills, small lakeside picnic area, benches and a bike rack, boardwalk, trails, kiosk and interpretive displays. Later came a permanent outhouse, covered shelter and a canoe/kayak landing.

The county called it “a place of creation, reflection and community to be enjoyed by families, residents and future generations.”

In 2024, the county unveiled the latest additions and coming improvements. Additions included interpretive signs, 1.25 miles of additional trails and links to create more loops to walk through the park, scenic overlooks, and two new picnic pavilions. County commissioners and staff also pointed to other additions in the works, including a boardwalk leading out into the lake — where the mine shaft once stood.

The county’s plan was to develop a 2.2 mile-scenic walking trail around the backside of Milford Lake and connected to existing trails. The new trail was designed to provide an amazing view of the mine itself.

Jan Loftis said her dad was 10 years old when his brother, Valentine Cole, died in the collapse and flooding of the Milford Mine north of Crosby. Valentine Cole was days away from his 25th birthday and was already a husband and father of two young children. One, a girl, was just a few months old when he died along with 40 other underground miners in the Milford tragedy .

Loftis and family members attended the grand opening for the newest additions to the park during its 100th anniversary year in 2024. Loftis was also there when they first started on the park and constructed the pavilion.

“It has really expanded,” Loftis said. “I didn’t even know there was a whole town.”

The town of Milford sprang up around the mine, as was common in those days. The county also found the foundation of the bachelor miners' quarters at the site.

Jan and Boyd Loftis of Pillager were at the ceremony with her brother’s grandson, Issac Cole. The 13-year-old is Valentine Cole’s great-great nephew.

“I think it's pretty cool learning my history, about my family,” Issac said. It all makes for a little different connection to the park for him. “I've read some of the things, a book about it, and I thought it's pretty interesting.”

Seeing what the county has done to preserve and unearth the site’s history is incredible, Loftis said.

“It's pretty inspiring to see his name out there, a picture of his house,” Loftis said, noting they can see Valentine Cole’s image and read more about him — a family member they never had the chance to meet. But he’s remained a part of them. The family tends his grave in Pillager. “We've always gone to his grave,” Loftis said. “We've always had to pay respect to him. So this means a lot.”

And the park, she said, may not be what people expect. There are trails and places to picnic or kayak, but she said there is so much history and buildings that amazed them as they always thought of Milford as just a mine, not the community that rose up at the site.

“It is amazing,” Loftis said. “I'm so glad the county has done this. They have done an amazing job and I hope people come out.”

The site has 5.4 miles of trails.

“I think it's going to just continue to be a real neat park that honors the 41 miners,” said then Crow Wing County Commissioner Doug Houge in 2024, adding it does that while giving people a rich outdoor experience. Houge said when he joined the County Board, he said the late Crow Wing County Commissioner John “Jinx” Ferrari was in the very early stages of getting the park started. Cuyuna Heritage Preservation Society member Lansin Hamilton was one who wanted to turn the site into a historic park to ensure the men who worked there and the mine were never forgotten.

The boardwalk is designed to take people out to the spot in the lake where the mine actually was and where it collapsed and flooded before the lake reclaimed it.

Milford Mine history

The Milford Mine’s shaft was 200 feet deep, with the first level at 135 feet. On that fateful afternoon, men were working at the 165-foot to 175-foot level. The Cuyuna Iron Range Heritage Network notes the area where the men worked, called the drift, was 175 feet down — almost half the length of a football field — and ran horizontally for 2,000 feet.

Miners worked in rooms off the drift. The rooms were braced with timber. Getting out of the mine in an emergency wouldn’t be a simple task. The Milford Mine had one deep shaft that involved various ladders where it would be one man climbing at a time and an open cage capable of carrying eight men that would take several minutes to reach the surface.

“It's one of the real important aspects of our history in the area,” said Mike Aulie, volunteer with the Cuyuna Iron Range Heritage Network in 2024. “ … So on Feb. 5, 100 years ago, there were 48 miners underground working. They were 15 minutes away from the end of their shift, and that's when the cave-in happened.”

The first sign of doom came with a sudden gust of warm wind . It blew out the carbide gas lamps on the miners’ hats, or blew their hats off altogether. A second gust came with a roaring, liquid sound. Seven miners made it out of the mine. Forty-one were entombed inside.

“I was working not very near anybody,” miner Matt Kangas told a reporter from the Duluth News Tribune after the disaster. “Then the wind hit me. I fell down and my lamp went out. I lit it. It went out again. It was dark and cold. The wind hit me again. I knew what it was. I was in a time like that once before, down in Michigan. So I knew if we lost a minute it was too late. I yelled. Then I ran like hell. We can’t save our life no more if we don’t run. I know. So I run.”

The disaster is believed to have begun when a surface cave-in of 6 or 8 feet at the mine's easternmost end of the property tapped into mud with a direct connection with Foley Lake.

It took 15 minutes for the mine, with its shaft 200 feet deep, to fill with water, mud and trap miners in their tracks as they fled. It would take nine months and a Herculean task of dewatering and digging to locate all the bodies.

In the months that followed, some of the miners who died were found standing with their arms locked with each other.

“At the time, it was the worst mining disaster in the United States, and even yet, today, it's the worst mining disaster in the state of Minnesota,” Aulie said. “... Every one of those miners had a story and a family.”

The miners who died ranged in age from 23 to 55. Many were married and left, depending on accounts, 88 to nearly 100 children behind, with some born in the months after their fathers died in the mine.

A five-member committee appointed by the governor investigated the disaster with three hearings. Barely 24-hours after the disaster and with the mine still flooded, inspectors reported to Minnesota Gov. Jacob Preus that the accident was unavoidable. Recommendations were made to improve safety, but none were reported as acted upon.

The mine owners were found to be blameless.

The mine closed in 1932 as demand for the manganese ore fell away with the Great Depression. Then the lake, now renamed Milford Lake, reclaimed the mine yet again.

How to get there

The Milford Mine Memorial Park is at 26351 Milford Lake Drive, north of Crosby off Highway 6.

The Milford Mine Memorial Park is open year-round, sunrise to sunset, and is free to the public. Trail maps are available for pickup up at the Land Services Building in Brainerd or can be viewed at www.crowwing.gov/289/Recreation .