Ammi W. Wright and Charles H. Davis of Saginaw, Michigan, purchased large amounts of timberland in Minnesota in 1871 and 1872. The "Wright & Davis lands" were located west of Mountain Iron, Minnesota, in sections 7 and 8, township 57 north 11 west, range 21 west. A major iron ore vein had been discovered there in 1894 by E.J. Longyear, but it had never been worked. James J. Hill, financier who was building the Great Northern Railway, purchased the land in 1898.

In January 1900, Corrigan, McKinney & Co. leased 5,000 acres of the Wright and Davis lands 6 miles west of Hibbing, Minnesota, from Hill.Within days Corrigan, McKinney & Co. established the Stevenson Iron Mining Co. and began mining.

The new project was called the Stevenson Mine after Burke Stevenson, one of the three original investors in Corrigan, McKinney & Co.

The Stevenson Mine became one of the largest open pit iron mines on the Mesabi Range.