Hibbing, Minnesota: The Town That Moved for an Iron Mine

Hibbing was founded in 1893 by Frank Hibbing, a German-born miner who found iron ore on Minnesota's Mesabi Range. He reportedly believed the richest ore lay right under where the town was being built, and urged that it go farther south. Nobody listened. He turned out to be right. Starting in 1895, separate open-pit mines around the town, the Hull, the Rust, the Mahoning and others, began digging, and over time they merged into one enormous pit. In 1901 the Oliver Iron Mining Company, part of the new U.S. Steel, became the major operator. The pit grew until it surrounded Hibbing on three sides, and the ore the company wanted was underneath the town itself. In 1918, the company proposed a solution: move the town. It would pay for new infrastructure in a new location to the south, near the neighboring community of Alice. The plan was approved, though not everyone agreed. In 1919, about 150 residents filed an injunction to try to stop it. The move began in 1919. Buildings were lifted onto steel wheels and timbers, then pulled south by horses, tractors and a steam crawler the company supplied. About 185 houses and 20 businesses made the trip, and some of the largest buildings had to be cut in half to move them. The company paid for a new high school, a hospital, a village hall and a hotel, the Androy, along with sewer and electric lines. The main relocation took about two years and cost about $16 million. A few holdouts stayed in old Hibbing for another decade, until the company bought their properties for a fraction of their value and tore them down. The move even gave rise to an American institution. In 1914, Carl Wickman and Andrew Anderson started a bus line carrying miners between Hibbing and Alice. It grew into Greyhound, and Hibbing is home to the Greyhound Bus Museum. Where the old town stood, the pit kept growing. During its peak years in the two World Wars, the Hull–Rust–Mahoning Mine supplied as much as one-fourth of all the iron ore mined in the United States. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and it's still being mined today. From the overlook, the foundations of the town that moved are still visible at the edge of the pit.