State champion jack pine in Mountain Iron, Minn., felled by loggers

As championship reigns go, this one was mostly unheralded. And brief.

Three days after being crowned the largest tree of its kind in the state, possibly in the nation, a towering jack pine near Mountain Iron, Minn., was felled by a logger making room for a $40 million expansion of U.S. Steel’s Minntac mine — an expansion already put on hold.

“It’s somewhat of a tragedy,” said Dale Irish, the longtime Mountain Iron resident who until recently owned the land where the champion tree stood. He said it would have been crowned national champ, too.

http://www.startribune.com/state-champion-jack-pine-in-mountain-iron-felled-by-loggers/300861721/