History
Fond du Lac Hydroelectric Station, on the St. Louis River, was built in 1923 and is capable of producing 12 megawatts of electricity.
By 1923, through a series of acquisitions and consolidations in the early 20th century, the company became known as Minnesota Power and Light.
Construction on the Thomson Hydroelectric Station began in 1905. The father-son team of Charles Coit Cokefair and Francis Albertson Cokefair got the project off the ground, although they were on board only as consultants by the time the station became operational in 1907.
Laskin Energy Center was built in 1953 to help power the earliest taconite processing facilities on Minnesota’s Iron Range, and now is fueled by natural gas.
Built in 1957 as part of Erie Mining Co., Minnesota Power acquired the plant in 2001 and named it Taconite Harbor Energy Center.
The first two units of the Boswell Energy Center started producing power in 1958 and 1960. Unit 3 was completed in 1973 and Unit 4 in 1976. Boswell is the workhorse of Minnesota Power’s generation fleet.
Wood waste from a nearby paper mill helps to fuel the M.L. Hibbard Renewable Energy Center.
The Taconite Ridge Wind Energy Center, built in 2007, was the first commercial wind energy center in northeastern Minnesota.
Construction of the Bison Wind Energy Center in south-central North Dakota was completed in 2015.
Minnesota Power has its roots in a handful of electricity companies formed to provide power for a young community, the timber industry and mining interests in the late 1800s and early 1900s in northeastern Minnesota. As businesses thrived and the population grew in the mineral-rich and heavily forested area, several utility companies consolidated and then incorporated in 1906 as Duluth Edison Electric Co., the immediate predecessor of Minnesota Power.
In the early 1920s, six major electric utilities and many municipal and privately owned local plants were operating in what is now Minnesota Power’s service territory. By 1923, after acquiring and consolidating many regional utilities, the company became known as Minnesota Power and Light Co.
The stock of Minnesota Power and Light was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1950 under the ticker symbol MPL. When the corporate name was changed to ALLETE, Inc. in 2000, the stock’s ticker symbol became ALE. Minnesota Power remains the largest division of ALLETE.
In the early days, the company relied on the region's rivers to generate hydropower to serve its customers. In fact, the incorporation papers of the Duluth Edison Electric Co., read in part "to improve, develop and use water power for heat, light and power purposes; and to develop, generate and use electric energy and currents for heat, light and power purposes, otherwise than by water power."
Minnesota Power prospered during and after World War II with the expansion of iron ore mining, forestry/paper industries, grain exports and shipbuilding on Lake Superior. Power plants, including Laskin Energy Center, Taconite Harbor Energy Center and Boswell Energy Center, were built during the 1950s through the 1970s to help accommodate an increasing industrial load.
Minnesota Power continues to generate energy at Boswell Energy Center Units 3 and 4 while adding more sources of renewable energy. Today, Minnesota Power delivers 50% renewable energy to customers via its hydro, solar, biomass and wind resources. The 25-megawatt Taconite Ridge Wind Center began operating in 2008, and the four-phase, 500-megawatt Bison Wind Energy Center in North Dakota was completed in 2015. Laskin Energy Center was converted from coal to a natural gas peaking plant in 2015.
