The iron ore of the Marquette Range has been mined continuously from 1847 until the present day.[3] The Marquette Iron Range was discovered in 1844 by a party of surveyors led by William A. Burt, who found that their sensitive magnetic compasses produced skewed results because of the concentration of iron in the land they were surveying.[5] Until 2016, Cleveland-Cliffs’ Empire and Tilden mines continued to produce iron ore from the Marquette Range.However, the Empire Mine officially ceased production on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 and was placed in an indefinite idle state.[7] The Marquette Iron Range was designated as a Michigan registered historic site in 1957, listed as S-0035.