This, at one time, was the largest open pit magnetite mine in the world. The lake now on the property was once an open pit mine almost two miles long, a third of a mile across and some 1500 feet deep. The mine was under the ownership of Jones & Laughlin Steel until 1967 when Ling-Temco-Vought bought everything, accelerated mining and closed the facility in 1977. Now it is like every other mine left in the Adirondacks, a monster in a sea of green.

From Adirondack Life, October 1999
Article: "The Hole Story"

"At Benson Mines, between Cranberry Lake and Star Lake in the northwestern Adirondacks, the outline of the story repeats: the discovery of iron in the early 1800's (this time by surveyors laying out the Old Albany Road), the creation of a flull-bl;own mine in the 1880's, the takeover prior to 1918 by an aggressive local firm, then lease by a huge corporation on the eve of World War II. In 1941, the Pittsburgh-based Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, then the country's fourth largest steel producer leased Benson Mines. The next year, the Defense Plant Corporation, a federal agency, built state-of-the-art facilities to pricess the magnetite. The ore body was mammoth, more extensive than intially thought, and miners homes and parts of the plant were moved to dig a hole that was for the time, the largest open pit mine in the world: two and a half miles long and a third of a mile deep.

"Benson Mines changed its operations in the 1950's when martite, a nonmagnetic iron was found. Within two years, production doubled, although processing martite with an iron content of twenty-three percent meant that three tons of crude ore yielded one ton of concentrate. Piles of waste rock accumulated. But no one seemed to mind, particularly. They were living in the safe settlement blessed by a generous, paternalistic company that rewarded its workers, sponsored sports teams and built a hospital.

"In 1967, Ling-Temco-Vought, the Texas conglomerate that owned Branniff Airlines and National Rent-A-Car, bought out Jones & Laughlin. Mining was accelerated; Senior staff first questioned the change, then feared for their jobs. In 1977, the mine was closed, and the community that some had described as Camelot was just a memory."

From a St. Lawrence County (NY) webpage:

"With the military tank armor requirement for this high-grade ore, the mine was put into full swing in 1941. At the height of production Benson Mines was the largest open-pit magnetite iron ore mine in the world. The mines closed in 1978."