MOUNTAIN IRON, Minn.-A stately jack pine growing in a yard in Mountain Iron's shrinking Parkville neighborhood was proclaimed the state champion of its species-the largest on record living in Minnesota-and then promptly cut down two days later.

The jack pine was surveyed by a state Department of Natural Resources forester on March 31 and confirmed to be the biggest live jack pine in the state.

It apparently was also the largest living jack pine in the U.S., according to records kept by the American Forests Big Tree Program.

"The state was looking for the largest jack pine because the previous one died, which was also a national champion,'' said Jennifer Teegarden, forest outreach specialist for the DNR and coordinator of the state's Big Tree Program. "I was able to declare the jack pine in Mountain Iron as the state champion."

But the new champion never made it into the record books. Just two days after being confirmed, the Mountain Iron pine was felled as part of a future mine expansion.

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"Now we need a new champion. I didn't even get a chance to update the website,'' she said. "Being a state Big Tree doesn't protect the tree from being cut down."

The Mountain Iron jack pine measured 87 inches in circumference at 4 ½ feet above ground. It was 57 feet tall with a crown spread of 32 feet. That's smaller than the previous state record, which totaled 189 points but which died of natural causes over the winter in Lake Bronson State Park.

But the Mountain Iron tree was larger than any other living jackpine in the national registry. The current national champ totals 136 points.

"That tree was big when I was little. It's got to be pretty old, but I'm not sure how old,'' said Dale Irish, 60, whose family lived for three generations at the home where the tree was cut. "We used to swing from the big branches."

Teegarden said she was unaware the tree was about to be cut down when Irish told her about it on March 24. She asked a state forester to measure the tree before April 1, when the property was being transferred from Irish to U.S. Steel Corp. The company is buying up properties on the north side of the Parkville neighborhood to make way for an expansion of the open-pit taconite iron mine at its massive Minntac operation.

Iron Rangers are used to moving for new mining-it's been happening for more than a century. U.S. Steel is expanding the mine by 483 acres to gain access to more taconite iron ore and extend the life of the facility through 2031. The plan would result in about a 5 percent increase in the size of the mine pits on adjacent land leased by the company.

The mine expansion was approved in September by state and federal regulators.