{"id":334,"date":"2026-02-15T20:03:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graciebarra.com\/northville-mi\/?post_type=news&p=334"},"modified":"2026-02-15T20:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:03:26","slug":"2-16-all-that-for-this","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/graciebarra.com\/northville-mi\/news\/2-16-all-that-for-this\/","title":{"rendered":"2\/16: ALL THAT FOR THIS"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You are destined for something big….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"article":"\"\"\r\n\r\nWhat you are looking at is the final output of the Tilden mine in Marquette, Michigan.\u00a0 It\u2019s a rather non-descript, \u00bc\u201d ball of iron.\u00a0 It\u2019s not much to look at, until you realize what it took to get there.\u00a0 This weekend I had the pleasure of going on a tour of the Tilden mine, and the scope of everything there is almost impossible to wrap your head around.\u00a0\u00a0 A very basic comment a woman made when getting on the tour bus after the tour struck me as amazingly profound.\u00a0 Looking at those little iron balls, she said, \u201cWow, all of that just for these little balls.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe tour starts in the repair shop.\u00a0 This, of course, is not any ordinary repair shop.\u00a0 Here they repair the Catapillar 797 dump trucks that are capable of hauling about 400 tons of ore per load, and are 25 feet tall, 50 feet long and 30 feet wide.\u00a0 They have a 1200 gallon fuel tank and a 3000 HP engine.\u00a0 The tires alone weigh 5 tons and are over 13 feet tall.\u00a0 The size of those machines was almost impossible to wrap my head around.\u00a0 Then I think about what it took to produce those machines\u2026.the design, the plants, the engineers, the manufacturing, the suppliers\u2026.all for those little iron balls.\r\n\r\nThen we went to the pit.\u00a0 A sprawling area that is about 1000\u2019 top to bottom and probably at least a mile in diameter and is so vast that the 797\u2019s look like toys as they haul the ore from the bottom of the mine.\u00a0 Those trucks even look small next to the shovels that load the trucks in just 3 scoops.....all for those little iron balls.\r\n\r\nThen we went to the processing plant where the ore is broken down into dust and the hematite is separated from the rock.\u00a0 Conveyor belts move 1000 tons of material per hour.\u00a0 That is a ton of material passing by every 3.6 seconds.\u00a0 Fifty-foot rotating and vibrating drums crush the ore, giant vats of water help separate the components, the rock is sent to waste piles and the iron is sent to kilns.\u00a0 The kilns are 50-foot diameter rotating drums that are 200 feet long and heated to 2000 deg F.\u00a0 Flux is added and the dust starts to form into balls.\u00a0 Balls that are too small are recirculated to get to the right size.\u00a0 Balls that are too big are broken down and reprocessed.....all to get the perfect size on those little iron balls.\r\n\r\nIf the balls clump together in the furnace, it must be shut down and before everything even cools, the clumps must be jackhammered apart.\u00a0 When something must be replaced on the drums, they actually build an entire crane AROUND the building and cut a hole in the roof to extract the section of drum that needs to be replaced, and the new part dropped through the roof and into place......all for those little iron balls.\r\n\r\nThe plant uses about 3000 MWh per day of power.\u00a0 An average US household uses 30 kWh per day.\u00a0 So, the plant uses the energy of 100,000 households per day.\u00a0 Millions of dollars are spent every year managing all the water run-off to ensure land contamination is minimized.\u00a0 Millions of tons of material are moved every year just to get to the ore.\u00a0 The organizational and operational scope of the facility is beyond my comprehension\u2026all for those little iron balls.\r\n\r\nBut those little iron balls support thousands of jobs.\u00a0 Those little iron balls support an entire community in Marquette.\u00a0 Those little iron balls are some of the most sought after little iron balls in the country, as many steel mills find those as the highest quality iron pellets produced in the country.\u00a0 Those little iron balls then become the steel in our cars, buildings and so many other products that support our lives.\r\n\r\nAt some point in your life, you might have felt like one of those non-descript, penny a piece little iron balls\u2026.something so small that it could be overlooked as nothing important.\u00a0 But rest assured, you are anything BUT that.\u00a0 Like those little iron iballs, you probably began as just a dream in 2 people\u2019s minds.\u00a0 Entire communities were developed around you, many without your knowledge, to help develop and refine you.\u00a0 You have faced the fire at some point in your life, fire that wasn\u2019t meant to break you, but refine you, even if you didn\u2019t know it at the time.\u00a0 You are uniquely where you are based on the circumstances of your life.\u00a0 Now, as that little iron ball, you are just beginning your journey to something amazing.\u00a0 You had to be refined from raw material to prepare you for the journey ahead.\u00a0 Maybe your mission is to be a great parent, maybe it\u2019s to serve society, maybe it\u2019s to be a business, political or religious leader, or maybe it\u2019s to simply be someone\u2019s greatest friend, a friend that maybe saves their life or changes the direction of their life.\u00a0 Whatever it is, embrace the little iron ball that you have become, because you do have greatness inside you, just waiting for the right purpose.\r\n\r\nWhen those little balls exit the plant, if it\u2019s winter and the lakes are frozen, they just sit there in a pile waiting for shipping lanes to open.\u00a0 If it\u2019s shipping season, they are immediately loaded and put to use.\u00a0 If it\u2019s the winter of your life, just know that summer will arrive.\u00a0 Use this time to strengthen your resolve so when summer arrives, you will be ready for action.\r\n\r\nIf you are ever in Marquette, I can\u2019t encourage you enough to take a tour of the Tilden mine.\u00a0 The tour itself is worth a specific trip to Marquette.\u00a0 You will not be disappointed.\u00a0 It is a geological, engineering, and operational marvel.\u00a0 I have spent a good deal of time in auto manufacturing plants, and while they are technological marvels, they pale in comparison to the scope of that mine.","featured_image":"","featured_image_id":"","featured_article":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-334","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n2\/16: ALL THAT FOR THIS - Northville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graciebarra.com\/northville-mi\/news\/2-16-all-that-for-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2\/16: ALL THAT FOR THIS - Northville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You are destined for something big....\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/graciebarra.com\/northville-mi\/news\/2-16-all-that-for-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Northville\" \/>\n<meta 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