On this spot on Sept. 19, 1844, William A. Burt, a deputy government surveyor, became the first to discover the great Lake Superior iron ore deposits. Peculiar fluctuations in his magnetic compass led Burt to ask his men to seek the cause, and they soon returned with pieces of iron ore from outcroppings in the area. The next year, prospectors from Jackson, Michigan, led by Philo M. Everett, arrived at the Carp River. In the summer, Marji-Gesick, a Chippewa chief, guided members of the party to this region and showed them iron ore in the roots of a fallen pine tree. As a result of this discovery, the Jackson Mining Company, of which Everett was a founder, began taking out ore here in 1847, and the Lake Superior area's great iron mining industry was born.