1959 Map of Lima Mountain

About this map

The Misquah Hills dominate this portion of the Arrowhead Region, representing a landscape defined by its complex glacial hydrology and early industrial access. In the late 1950s, this area of the Superior National Forest and Minnesota State Forest remained a wilderness of interconnected waterways like Misquah Lake and Lima Lake. A notable human imprint is the Old Railroad Grade that winds through the center of the sheet, passing near Skidway Lake and Lower Trout Lake. This former rail corridor once facilitated the extraction of timber from these remote woods, a precursor to the modern recreational use implied by the Lookout Tower on Lima Mountain. The drainage patterns of the Brule River and South Brule River carve through the high terrain, while scattered features like the Gravel Pit near Pit Lake mark small-scale local resource use within the forest.