This article explores the role of local politicians and planners as public agents of change in the creation of new economic paths in municipalities. Drawing on current literature, we suggest three public legitimation practices employed by these actors. Focusing on the establishment of a mining industry in Pajala municipality, Sweden, we demonstrate how local public actors act as agents of change by employing three legitimation practices: articulating compelling visions that encourage stakeholders to envisage desirable local and regional future possibilities, aligning new economic paths with broader regional and national political agendas, and reinterpreting the local past. This paper demonstrates that these legitimation practices employed by local public agents operate paradoxically: they not only enable new economic trajectories but also marginalise alternative visions, reflecting the contested and uneven nature of spatial transformation in resource-rich regions. We conclude with a model of local public legitimation practices in new path creation.