TOWN MOVED TWO MILES.

Franklin Times, Volume 10, Issue 798, 9 January 1923, Page 5

TOWN MOVED TWO MILES.

Moving a town of some ,15,00 inhabitants a distance of two miles seems almost an impossible task, yet this has been accomplished in Minnesota, and thd town of Hibbing has settled down to life in its new site. It cost between 15,000,000 dollars and 18,000,000, dollars to movd. the town off the iron bed of some 40,000,000 tons ojr ore it had grown upon, a moving bill of something like 1000 dollars an inhabitant. The story of the moving of Hibbing is part of the epic of steel. Hibbing was in the way. The Oliver Mining Company, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, moved Hibbing, and in the moving spent millions so lavishly on the town that it is now, in the midst of the iron range, like a jewel dropped on a slag heap. Hibbing has a 3,000,000 dollar high school fitted with marble and bronze. It has a 500,000 .dollar hotel, expensive clubs, department stores and public buildings. It is a model city, built on an architectural design. And this striking city, freshly rebuilt, may be deserted in thirty years or so. When the iron is mined there will be no more reason for Hibbing. i Going back to 'the beginning of Hibbing, nea|r the centre of the great Mesaba iron region in Minnesota, there is one deposit of commercial iron ore that amounts to more than 750/000,000 tons. It extended from east to west for more than two and its width vafried up to more than a mile. Before much was known of the size or shape of this enormous deposit the village of Hibbing was established approximately midway between the east and west ends; of the ore. No. particular care was), exercised to see whether or not the town was built on ore or on waste ground. (The village finally became a town of 12,000 or 15/000 people, spreading over a considerable airea. The) Oliver company drilled, its town; site lands and found therein an enormous body of ore lying under a surface so thin that mining would be quite inexpensive. As the lease was for a fifty year term and time was passing, the company decided to remove the forty acres of stores, •public buildings, hotels, dwellings and the like to a new and convenient spot, where there was no ore. This was found two miles south, and for the last two year's removal has been in progress. Con: any Moved Everything.. The Oliver company held miningrights and could evict all residents on the tract but it made arrangements to move everybody, replace their homes or places of business intact, to build new on their own plans if so desired and to take payment in long term contracts at lowest rates, to build streets, place sewers/ lay sidewalks, and generally improve the new location. In addition .to moving the people, the Oliver company constructed a 500,000 dollar hotel and put other millions into department store buildings, garages, club-houses, newspaper offices and flat buildings. The village on its own part put in schools and other public buildings. There are other schools almost as costly as the high school.: There is a village light, heat and power plant representing rribre than 1,000,000 dollars, which supplies heat, water and electric current for all, purposes at less than cost ; and there are innumerable other conveniences for living. . The village could afford it; mo>"e than 96 per cent, of its tax Receipts were from the various mining companies outside corporations that could not move their property away in time to escape taxes. And the village had the power, the votes showed that at every election.. With all this expenditure taxes were high ; the rate was not excessive as rates go in Minnesota. There were so many rich mines within the village limit that the valuation was tremendous better than 85,000000 dollars,, and it did not take a high rate to obtain enormous supplies of cash. Hibbing spends 1,000,000 dollars a year more for general village purposes than Duluth.