BESSEMER, Mich. (Northern News Now) - Over the years, my basketball has had the hide played right off of it and in the mid 60’s, that is what the Bessemer Speed Boys did at a critical junction in their town’s history.

“It was 7 am on a January morning when 50 miners on the 28th level at the Peterson Mine in Bessemer, Michigan, put down their tools and were hoisted to the surface for the very last time,” read author Thomas Pelissero from his new book.

The life story of the Gogebic Range in Michigan is similar to the Vermilion Range in Minnesota.

Both had run out of high-grade ore, and the living wage jobs offered by the mines vanished.

In Bessemer in 1966, that uncertainty was also found in the boys’ basketball team.

“Our Bessemer Speed Boys basketball team was losing 42 games in a row

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