At Agate Bay, one of six docks was used for shipping iron ore, though only three remained as of 1995. Agate Bay was the site of Minnesota's first shipment of iron ore in 1884, and today more than 10,000,000 ton of taconite or iron ore is shipped annually. Taconite is a low-grade iron ore used to make pellets, which are sent from Agate Bay to blast furnaces on the lower Great Lakes to make steel. The original docks were made of wood, but by the 1920's steel had replaced the wood. Dock #1 is over 1,300 feet long and about seven stories tall, with 112 pockets on each side. Trains full of taconite or iron ore move along the top of the dock and unload into hoppers, and chutes along the side drop into the hulls of boats to load the cargo.