CROSBY, Minn. — Just two hours north of the Twin Cities, you'll find a once-sleepy state park that's fast becoming an enormous tourist attraction — thanks to the 70 miles of mountain bike trails that crisscross its 5,000 acres.
When you ride the trails at Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area today, it’s hard to believe that 50 years ago, more than 30 iron mines operated in and supported the surrounding towns of Crosby, Ironton, Deerwood and Cuyuna.
But by the 1970s, most of the mines were shut down, forcing many businesses in those towns to do the same.
Aubrey Koop, who now heads the Cuyuna Lakes Chamber of Commerce, grew up in Crosby. She said that through the late 90s and early 2000s, there wasn’t a lot of hope in Crosby, as up to 40% of the businesses on Main Street had been boarded up.
The land around it had become an unofficial dumping zone, with people tossing old couches and cars into the abandoned mine pits, but as the years passed, the land started to heal and the people who lived in the towns nearby decided they’d had enough. That's when they pulled together and cleaned it up.
"I can't even tell you about the pounds and pounds of garbage that volunteers went into and pulled out of those mine pits,” Koop said.
Business owner Johnna Johnson ran the Chamber at the time. She said it was the spirit of the volunteers that sparked a movement, which truly caught fire when a mountain bike scout came to town. The scout said the topography created by the mines would make for world-class mountain biking trails.
Once again, volunteers paved the way, building the first five miles of trails that connect the towns of Crosby, Ironton, Cuyuna and Deerwood.
It was a grassroots effort, according to Johnson, involving physical work, fundraising and securing land acquisitions. After the first five miles opened, they gained momentum, and with the help of the DNR and state and federal funding, they built more trails, leading more people to discover what had been hiding all along on the Cuyuna Range.
"I think when the trails opened, there was like, 24,000 people that we saw,” Johnson said, “And that was huge, and now I'm thinking it's 360,000 people. So, that's a 10-year change."
Visitors can find a lot of beauty outside of the mountain biking trails as well, including a network of former mine pits that are now pristine, spring-fed lakes. Some are up to 500 feet deep and perfect for kayaking, paddle boarding and scuba diving.
It was all of those activities and visitors that attracted the attention of entrepreneurs, like Jake Zoesch, who used to come to Crosby from Milwaukee to visit his in-laws.
"I saw downtown, and I saw all these other little businesses starting, and kind of watching them just boom in the first year they opened — then stay busy," he said.
Two years ago, he and his wife decided to open a business of their own. They bought some of the last available land in Crosby and built four cabins that make up The Cuyuna Cabin Collection. They opened June 1 and business, he says, is booming.
“If there was two or three days open for the entire month it was a shock," he said. “And that number just keeps going up. I don’t see it ending.”
Aubrey Koop agreed.
“I'm amazed,” she said. “It seems like every week there's something else opening in the area."
Main Street is now filled with coffee shops, restaurants, bike shops and breweries — the turnaround, a testament not just to the popularity of mountain biking trails, but also, to the people who live there.
"We're gritty folk here,” Koop said. “I think, you know, there’s a kind of grit where a lot of us wanted to show off what we had and we had the vision and the drive.”
She invites everyone to come experience it for themselves.
“You have to see it to believe it, I think," she said. "Come here, give it a shot, see what it's all about. There's something for everyone to do here. You'll want to come back."
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