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Ondara to play Hibbing HS auditorium April 23
This Saturday, April 23, the singer-songwriter Ondara will appear on the Hibbing High School auditorium stage. Northern Community Radio presents the free concert at 7 p.m. thanks to a grant from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Though pre-ordered tickets were available at www.kaxe.org, additional seating will be available first come, first served on…
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Legacy visions in Bob Dylan’s hometown
Just after World War II, Abram and Beatty Zimmerman moved their family from Duluth back to Beatty’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. But not really. Beatty’s real hometown had been destroyed. The houses were ripped away; brick buildings scrapped. In 24-hour shifts, machines stripped away the earth below like flesh from the bone. Men dynamited solid…
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Five northeastern Minnesota colleges merge
Today the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees approved the merger of five northeastern Minnesota community and technical colleges. The colleges include Hibbing Community College, Itasca Community College, Mesabi Range College, Rainy River Community College and Vermilion Community College. The new college will be called Minnesota North College with campuses in Ely, Eveleth,…
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The death of stories, and their resurrection
I recently finished reading every single edition of the erstwhile Hibbing Daily Tribune and Mesaba Ore / Hibbing Daily News from the years 1913 to 1926. I’d guess that’s about 3,000 individual newspapers, eight to 24 pages apiece. Is that a humblebrag? Honestly, it seems really hard to tell. It might just be a call…
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Power in the Wilderness podcast re-airs Mondays at 8a on KAXE
I’m nearing the finish line for my enormous book, “Power in the Wilderness,” about Victor Power and the action-packed world of early 20th Century Hibbing, Minnesota. It will be some time before the book is ready for you to read, however. Meantime you should check out the podcast of the same name that independent filmmaker…
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Novak’s ‘Steel’ holds enormous weight
Good fiction tells truth that nonfiction struggles to spit out efficiently. As I’ve been toiling on a thick tome of Iron Range history, along comes a novel that cuts right to the point. The story of the Iron Range isn’t just mining and immigrants, unions and politics. It’s an untold trauma that lingers for generations,…
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Canine namesake highlights Power story in Hibbing
This week, the Hibbing Police Department announced the winning entry from a contest to name its newest K-9 dog. The dog will be named Dottie, in honor of one of Hibbing’s pioneering entrepreneurs, Dottie Power. Gina Forti, of Hibbing, submitted the suggestion. Dottie Power was one of the most successful merchants in early Hibbing history…
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‘Hockeyland’ comes home
Northern Minnesota’s obsessive relationship with hockey has endured since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. For some, the hockey lifestyle defines an entire 20-30 year period of life, perhaps longer as new generations continue the tradition. Even those who don’t play hockey see their lives affected by the game. Classrooms empty during state tournaments. Local fast…
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The bombs we carry
The police officers donned dark blue overcoats. Their bright brass buttons and badges glowed in the morning light. They gathered at the corner of Howard Street and Fifth Avenue. A captain barked orders, steam pouring from his mouth. Men stationed themselves at each exit of the luxurious new Androy Hotel. The town was Hibbing, Minnesota.…
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The poison in our standing water
Today, you can read my latest column for the Minnesota Reformer. The essay is entitled, “The poison in our standing water.” My work continues to transform as I ingest untold quantities of historical research for my book “Power in the Wilderness,” which I hope to finish quite soon. This piece analyzes Range history, Facebook’s power…
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Flirting with fads
In our consumeristic society this weekend becomes a sort of proving ground for material desires. We mark “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday,” not as official holidays, but as shared celebration of enormous corporations achieving their Q4 revenue expectations. The stuff we buy and sell, however, changes a little each year. I remember Tickle-Me-Elmo being…
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Elegy for the pack-sacker
In 1922, Claude Atkinson, editor of the erstwhile Hibbing Daily News and Mesaba Ore opined about a local pageant celebrating the mining history of the Mesabi Iron Range. Iron Range towns at that time seemed curiously young for such nostalgia. It would be the modern equivalent of a pageant celebrating a 30 year high school…
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The Hunt for Red October: Cherry Edition
When you’re from Cherry, Minnesota, you get used to certain conversations. For instance, “Where is Cherry?” (Just east of Hibbing). “Lotta hayfields out there.” (Ya). And of course, “Isn’t Gus Hall from Cherry?” (Yes, of course). In fact, I know that fact better than most. I was the last journalist to interview Hall before he…
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Free ideas for Iron Range future
People around local politics often like to “admire problems.” In short, people like to look at problems, complain about them, even lose sleep over them, but then take few steps to actually solve those issues. Sometimes I’m reminded that talking about economic diversification for the Iron Range or the broad concept of “change” isn’t enough.…
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Naming a legacy one noun at a time
Humans didn’t create the world, but we do get to name the things we find here. We name our kids for our dads and our dogs for 19th Century burlesque performers. Someone called it “phlegm” and then invented the spelling. The ancients named “steel” and “stone” with nice sturdy words, but also called some tiny…