On this site in 1852, the Green Bay and Lake Superior Rail-Road began the survey that led to construction of the first steam railroad in the Upper Peninsula. The line ran from Marquette to the Jackson and Cleveland iron mines fourteen miles away. In 1855, the Iron Mountain Railroad Company began building the railroad along the previously surveyed route, and by 1857 it was hauling ore from the mines to Marquette. It later became part of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad, which has operated since 1961 as the Soo Line. This railroad, and others like it, carried millions of tons of ore, the basic raw material for the rapidly developing steel industry in the United States.