[6] That year the miners incorporated the town of Florence, population 177, near the east side of Shagawa Lake on a site now known as Spaulding.

According to a history written in 1910, "The first religious service was conducted by Father Buh, who came from Tower for that purpose, and the Catholic congregation erected the first church.

Mr. Freeman, who arrived in time to hold an Easter service in 1889, and located here permanently, organizing the Presbyterian church.

With the need for wooden support beams to keep the tunnels from collapsing and for lumber to meet the needs of the ever-expanding growth in the area, the logging and milling industries grew.

Logging continues in the region, though on a limited scale and only for paper pulp—the major operations virtually disappeared by 1920 when the area's tree reserves were depleted.

Since the 1960s, as Iron Range mines began closing, leaving only a few in operation, Ely, like many northern Minnesota communities, faced economic decline.

[11][12] In October 2021, the Biden administration filed an application for a "mineral withdrawal" that will put a hold on the development of the mine proposal while the environmental impacts are studied.

The Timberjay called the Biden administration's decision a "potentially fatal blow to [a] proposed copper-nickel mine.

Summertime is warm (sometimes hot) and wintertime is cold (sometimes severely) and drawn out, sometimes beginning in October and lasting well into April.

[21] Ely's post office contains two tempera-on-plaster murals, Iron-Ore Mines and Wilderness, painted by Elsa Jemne in 1941.

A wall of windows overlooks a 2.5-acre naturally forested enclosure with a pond and waterfalls, which is home to four resident bears.

The center features gray wolves viewable through large windows that allow visitors to watch them communicate, play, hunt and eat.

In addition to the onsite ambassador wolves, the center offers a variety of educational programs at its Ely interpretive facility and other locations in northern Minnesota and across North America.

Afternoon, weekend and weeklong programs include howling trips, radio tracking, snowshoe treks, family activities, dogsledding, videos, presentations, flights over wolf country, demonstrations, and hikes.

She gradually gained national prominence and extensive coverage in media, books and documentaries, and over the years tens of thousands of canoeists stopped by to visit and drink her homemade root beer.

[26] After a 1949 flight ban Molter began importing her supplies for root beer by boat and reusing glass bottles that she stored in a shed.

Canoeists stopping by would be asked to bring supplies from town and would commonly leave an oar behind, hundreds of which are still on display at the museum.

Molter's land was taken from her in the 1964 Wilderness Act, however, after a nationwide uproar and her friends protesting, she was allowed to temporarily stay as long as the resort was closed down.

They were all then reconstructed there, and the Dorothy Molter Museum was established, and to this day sells her root beer to preserve her legacy.

In 2018 the museum opened an exhibit of paintings representative of Ely mining history, featuring the works of Albin Zaverl.

Tanner's Hospital is a former hospital building built in 1901 as a moneymaking enterprise due to the area's high disease rate, a consequence of low investment in sanitation infrastructure in the mining boom towns of the Iron Range, where the long-term existence of any given community was unpredictable.

They could tow timber rafts, hoist logs, navigate shallow waters, and even pull themselves across dry land.

[31] Trezona Trail offers historic views of the old iron ore mining operations that first brought new immigrants to the area.

[32] In 2015, the Ely Marathon began, sending runners from the north side of Burntside Lake down the Echo Trail and into the city.

Ely is the largest "jumping off" town for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and a major one for Quetico Provincial Park.

During the summer it runs canoe and backpacking programs offered at several degrees of experience, with more advanced trips for experienced campers.

Environmental education programs are held during the fall, winter and spring, with students studying wilderness survival, plant and tree identification, basic hiking skills, animal tracking, the night sky, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.

While some anthropologists believe the pictographs may have served as a guide for navigating in the deep woods during the winter hunting season, others see it as a visual representation of the connection between the spiritual and temporal worlds.

In 2009, Ely made a tongue-in-cheek international bid to host the 2016 Olympics, with a man allegedly already employed with a bucket to drain Miner's Lake south of town in order to provide stadium seating.

Shirts, bumper stickers, signs, and even interstate billboards bearing the slogan "Ely in 2016" became commonplace throughout the state.