This PopSpots website ILLUSTRATES ALL THE LOCATIONS discussed with both new AND vintage PHOTOGRAPHS.

The library map and brochure looks like this:

The 2-page, foldable brochure is given out free to visitors at the Hibbing Library where there is a Dylan exhibit. It's also downloadable for free online at this link on on the library's website.

It's a very good introductory guide to use If you have only one day to spend in Hibbing.

Otherwise, you should look into the updated PopSpots Dylan Guide Maps (below) which include additional sites.

This (below) is what the Hibbing Public Library map and guide to Bob Dylan's Hibbing looks like.

The captions give a good introduction to the pictures you will be seeing on this website.

"Hibbing's Bob Dylan Walk" - (from the Hibbing Library) - Front Cover - Page 1

"Hibbing's Bob Dylan Walk" - Page 2

"Hibbing's Bob Dylan Walk" - Page 3

"Hibbing's Bob Dylan Walk" - Page 4

In order to make the locations easier to find in this age of Google Maps, we made another version of the library map and ADDED ADDRESSES to make the locations easier to find as you walk or drive through Hibbing.

THAT MAP LOOKS LIKE THIS:

• (TO PRINT THIS MAP OUT, CLICK here FOR A PDF, or drag the map to your desktop and print it.)

ABOUT THE POPSPOTS GUIDE AND MAPS TO DYLAN'S HIBBING:

Map 1) 30 DYLAN-RELATED SITES IN CENTRAL HIBBING
Map 2) HOWARD STREET - CLOSE UP
Map 3) 13 DYLAN-RELATED SITES OUTSIDE CENTRAL HIBBING

HERE ARE THE MAPS IN ORDER.

MAP 1) The PopSpots map of 30 BOB DYLAN-RELATED SITES in Central Hibbing, incorporating the library's 14 Sites and our additional 16 sites, including, for example,

• The monument to Dylan outside the High School, commemorating his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• More places Dylan hung out like Collier's Bar-B-Q, Sammy's Pizza, and the Sportsmen's Cafe.
• The movie theaters Bob's relatives owned allowing Bob to see free movies whenever he wanted.

We've added these new locations to the existing map by giving the new locations an additional letter, so if a location is between #2 and #3 it becomes #2A, etc.

• (TO PRINT THIS MAP OUT, CLICK here FOR A PDF, or drag the map to your desktop and print it.)

MAP 2) A CLOSE-UP MAP of HOWARD STREET, Hibbing's main street, showing the tightly-packed sites along that street.

When visiting Hibbing you might want to walk down Howard Street. The other sites are spread out and a car would be helpful in getting around, depending on how much time you have for your visit.

• (TO PRINT THIS MAP OUT, CLICK here FOR A PDF, or drag the map to your desktop and print it.)

MAP 3) A map of DYLAN-RELATED SITES OUTSIDE CENTRAL HIBBING - with Dylan-related sites #15 through #27, added by PopSpots.

Additional information about Dylan, Hibbing, and Minnesota

• Dylan mentions of Hibbing and Duluth
• Minnesota nicknames map
• Highway 61
• 10 other famous people from Hibbing
• Unique verbal expressions of the Iron Range
• 10 regional food specialities of the Iron Range
• Bob's various high school bands
• Bob's friends from Herzl Camp and school (excluding bandmates)
• Dylan's 2-football field length walk to school for 11 years
• Dylan quotes about his Hibbing years from the documentary NO DIRECTION HOME
• Dylan and radio
• Dylan, Hibbing, and polka music
• Howard Street in the 1960's - block-by-block

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BACKGROUND REFERENCE

THE MESABI RANGE AND THE BIRTH OF HIBBING

• Iron Ore: From open-pit to steel mill
• General facts about the Mesabe Range
• General facts about the Hull-Rust-Mahoning Iron Ore Mine
• The Hull-Rust Mahoning Mine is located in the north part of Hibbing
• Two Interesting aspects of iron-ore mining to note
• The two Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine historical eras: The Hematite Era and the Taconite Era
• The Two Eras
• The Hematite Era
• The Taconite Era

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A little background on Dylan, Hibbing, and the Iron Range of Minnesota.

• Pic: Where HIbbing is in the USA and Minnesota
• pic: Various mines of the Mesabi Iron Range near Hibbing
• Pic: Overhead view of Hibbing

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• Tour guides for HIbbing Sites, Hibbing High School, and Dylan-relayed sites
• Motels in and around Hibbing
• Sources / Further reading
• Links to other PopSpots webpages about Dylan in Duluth and Minneapolis

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THE POPSPOTS GUIDE TO BOB DYLAN'S HIBBING

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PopSpots Dylan Guide #1: Zimmerman Furniture and Electric (1925 5th Avenue East)

(corresponds with HIbbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #1)

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The PopSpots tour begins across from the Hibbing Bowling Center (still active) which is located several blocks north of the Hibbing Library.

If you stand across from the bowling alley and look to your right you can see the former location of Zimmerman Furniture and Electric, where Bob's father Abe worked.

The address of Zimmerman's is 1929 5th Avenue East which is located between Howard Street on the south and 19th Street on the north,

Looking straight ahead and you will see the Hibbing Bowling Center where Bob bowled as a teen.

And to the left you can now see a vacant lot where the Moose Lodge used to be. (I superimposed it onto this shot). Bob and his band The Golden Chords played here at least once. The lodge was on the second floor. Unfortunately, the building burned to the ground in 2020.

(click on picture to enlarge it)

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When you look at the former Zimmerman Electric building, you will see that it now has a Pizza-Hut type roof on it.

The roof covers a normal rectangular building that used to be Zimmerman Furniture and Electric.

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Pictured: The former Zimmerman Furniture and Electric - 1925 5th Avenue East (now Excell Business Systems) (next to bowling alley)

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Here's another picture of what Zimmerman Furniture and Electric looked like.

The second floor was a small hotel called the Kay Hotel. Many of the early buildings in downtown Hibbing had hotels or apartment groups on the second floor for the new workers who would arrive constantly to work the mines.

(photo source: the book "Positively Main Street" by Toby Thompson)

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If we superimpose a photo of the original building over the present building with the Pizza-hut type roof, you can get a better idea of what the store looked like on the street back in Bob's day.

The second floor was mostly hotel rooms. I'm not sure who managed them, but I don't think it was Abe Zimmerman or his brothers downstairs at the appliance store.

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This is a side view of Zimmerman Furniture from up the street. You can see how far back it goes.

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This photo shows what the building just to the north of Zimmerman Furniture and Electric looked like. At the time of the photo the Zimmerman store was called Micka Electric. You can see it at far left.

Dylan's Uncles, Maurice ("Moe") and Paul Zimmerman bought Micka Electric from Nick Micka and renamed it Zimmerman Furniture and Electric. Later, Dylan's father Abe would join the firm.

The store combined furniture sales (living room and bedroom sets) with electrical appliances (radios, lamps, record players, etc.).

Young Bob was sometimes hired to sweep up the store "for 15 cents or a quarter" or sometimes help in deliveries, Echo Helstrom told Toby Thompson the sometimes he would have to go along to repossess unpaid-for appliances, when a mine shut down and miners could not make all their payments. "Bob hated that. (He) used to dread it worse than anything. I think that's when Bob first started feeling sorry for poor people," she said.

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And's here's a picture looking up from the south.

(source: Garon family website)

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This shows Abe Zimmerman on the left and the interior of the store on the right.

(source: Garon family website)

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Here's an old ad from Zimmerman Furniture and Electric.

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PopSpots Dylan Guide #2: The HIbbing Bowling Alley (1929 5th Avenue East)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #2 )

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The next site on the Dylan tour is The Hibbing Bowling Alley, just to the left of Zimmerman Furniture. This is what it looked like in Bob's Day.

You can see the sign that says "bowling" on the front. It is still in business.

There used to be a second and third floor over the bowling alley. They have been taken down.

Just past the bowling alley was the Moose Lodge (on the second floor), where Bob used to sneak in and play piano for his girlfriend Echo. The Lodge was demolished and now a small children's park is in its space. We will get to that.

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Here's a picture of the Hibbing Bowling Center from 2008 from Google Street Views.

The Moose Lodge (now demolished) is behind it.

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And here's what the entrance looks like in 2025.

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Dylan bowled with a team called The Gutter Boys. Here's a group shot, with Bob second from left in the checkered shirt.

Bob would be about 13 or 14 years old in the photo.

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Here's what the bowling alley looks like inside.

(photo from Google Maps via Brian Villalovos.)

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And here's where you rent your bowling shoes. Looks like there's also a little coffee counter to the right.

(photo from Google Maps via Andrew Lamminen)

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The next building down the block beyond the bowling alley used to be the Moose Lodge at 421 East Howard St. It was a large two-story brick building where Bob used to practice piano. But it is now a children's park.

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The entire building that housed the Moose Lodge on the second floor was gutted by a fire in August of 2020 and had to be demolished. It had been built in 1922.

Here's an article and a photo of it.

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They saved the giant MOOSE sign out front and you can take your picture next to it through the fence.

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PopSpots Dylan Guide #2A: MOOSE LODGE (421 East Howard Street)

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This is what the Moose Lodge looked like in the early 1950's.

You can see a black sign for Kelly Furniture on the side. That store took up the large ground floor.

(via Dave Engle's book Dylan in Minnesota)

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This is what the bar area looked like inside the Moose Lodge.

(via The Hibbing Historical Society)

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A Moose Lodge is a local chapter of Moose International, a fraternal and service organization founded in 1888, dedicated to community service, and headquartered in Mooseheart, Illinois.

The large room in the lodge was often rented out for events.

In the book Positively Main Street Toby Thompson describes that Dylan's 10th high school reunion was held in the Moose Lodge and Dylan unexpectedly showed up with his wife, Sara, who he happily introduced to Echo. Dylan signed his autograph for many of his admirers and even for Echo, his junior year sweetheart.

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In the photo below, just to the left of the front door, under the Moose sign you can see the word "advisors." That building with the elaborate second-story window, used to be the L & B Cafe where Dylan and his friends hung out. Dylan also went there many times with Echo his girlfriend.

Echo has said that she first time Dylan when he was playing guitar on the street corner. She also says that sometime they would sneak into the Moose Lodge and Bob would play to her on the Moose club's piano.

Bob is said to have played with his band in the Moose lodge at some dances.

(Picture from Google Maps. To find it yourself, search Google Maps for "421 East Howard Street, Hibbing. MN," then, when you get to the street view, go "back in time" in the top left corner by clicking "see more dates.")

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After the Moose Lodge burned down, its space was turned into a children's park.

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This is what the site of the former Moose Lodge looks like when the Moose Lodge was still up.

This comes from the "back in time" feature of Google Street View. The photo was taken in 2008.

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Here's an AI-generated picture depicting how Echo might have seen Bob performing on the street outside the Moose Lodge on the night they first had a long talk together in the L & B (they had met in a school class one time before).

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PopSpots Dylan Guide #3: The L & B Cafe (417 East Howard Street)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #3)

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The next Dylan spot we will look at is The L & B Cafe, a diner-type restaurant where Dylan hung out after school with his friends.

The L & B Cafe was located in the red brick building to the left of the playground, in the building with the second-floor window with a little roof on it. The restaurant, like many in Hibbing, was long and narrow.

Echo Helstrom said that she and Bob came here often and that they usually shared cherry pie a la mode (with vanilla ice cream), which she said was Bob's favorite dessert.

The building that contained the L & B Cafe, which is long out of business, is now the annex and rentable party/meeting room of Mike's Pub (and restaurant) which is in the building on the left and still functioning.

In the picture below, the L & B was the building on the right at 417 East Howard Street. I have put a white box around it.

Also in this picture you can see, on the left, The Howard Coffee Shop. That is at number 413 East Howard Street. It is presently Mike's Pub, a bar and full service restaurant. It is connected to the former L & B space which is now used for large meetings and private events.

You can view the L & B space from inside Mike's Pub. Sometimes the doorway is open. Otherwise just ask the friendly staff to show it to you. And be sure to try the cheese curds!

Side note: according to the Hibbing Historical Society the letters L & B stand for the name of it's two owners whose last names were Lamothe and Biancini.

Bobby Zimmerman and Echo Helstrom meet cute at the L & B

The L & B restaurant is legendary as the place where Bob had his first long talk with Echo Helstrom who would be his Junior year girlfriend and later, for many Dylan fans, the subject of his song "Girl From The North Country."

This is how Echo described meeting Bob to Toby Thompson in his 1971 book Positively Main Street:

"The first place I saw him was ice skating, . . but the but first place I actually met him was over at the L & B Cafe. . . that was back at the beginning of our eleventh grade year. . . . I had him pegged as a goody-goody one of those kids who never wanted to have fun. . ."

"Maybellene," he screamed . ."by Chuck Berry !. . so you listen to Gatemouth Page, (the famous R+B DJ) too!."

Well with that, Echo and Bob talked all night about music. And after closing time, Bob led Echo and his friends next door to the Moose Lodge, where Echo picked the lock with a penknife and they went upstairs and Bob played piano for a while until they left before their luck of not getting caught had run out.

Below is a straight-on shot of the former L & B Cafe.

And here's a present day side view.

This is a view taken by Toby Thompson for his book Positively Main Street. On the left you can see Echo's hands.

And here's a scene of the same area from Google Street View and from a few years back, before the Moose Lodge burned down.

The L & B at this time had been replaced by a financial firm.

This is what the interior of the L & B space looks like now. It's a rather large room, larger than what I would have expected a "cafe" to be."

PopSpots Dylan Guide #3A: Mike's Bar (413 East Howard Street)

To see the inside of the former L & B, you go into Mike's Bar next door and take a right through a short passageway.

This is Mike's Bar, #3A on the Dylan tour. It's at 413 East Howard Street. Going there will give you a flavor of what the L & B must have been like, though without a bar.

They have old-fashioned booths in the back like out of Happy Days or Grease. which were set in the young Dylan era.

At the L + B Cafe, Echo and Bob would talk about music and faraway places like these lovebirds from the 1940's.

Here's a photo of the building even before it was the L & B Cafe. It has the sign reading "Range Radio Service" sticking out from it. The Moose Lodge was on the second floor of the building at right that says "Kelly Furniture."

Their cooking station artwork includes references to Bob AND Greyhound busses, a company founded in Hibbing.

Don't forget to try a local Minnesotan favorite - fried mozzarella cheese curds, served with sweet chili sauce.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #4: Feldman's Department Store (403-405 East Howard Street)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #4)

Now, in a photo from in front of where the L & B Cafe was, this is the view down Howard Street looking west, where the Dylan tour takes us.

We are going to walk about two buildings down from Mike's Bar to #403-405 East Howard Street which used to be Feldman's department store, where Bob's mother worked.

This will be #4 on the Dylan map.

This is what Feldman's Department Store looks like now. It's at 403-405 East Howard Street.

Presently it's a Benders shoe and clothing store.

This is what Feldman's used to look like when Bob's mother Beatty worked there in the 1960's in the woman's dresses department.

Toby Thompson said she worked there as a saleslady in the warmer months but spent the winters in Florida.

Bob's boyhood friend Leroy Hoikkala also worked at Feldman's. He remembers getting a phone call there asking him to go a block or two away to Micka Electric to see Bob's father. When he got there Abe Zimmerman proudly played him a new Harry Belafonte record on which Bob played harmonica - one of his first professional jobs.

Nancy Peterson, another contemporary of Bob's from Hibbing, also had a part-time job at Feldman's and was a close friend of Bob's mother. She remembers Beatty Zimmerman telling her that Bob was dating Joan Baez and "that was a big sign that Bob was hitting the big time." (via MPR Radio)

According to the Hibbing Library's "Bob Dylan Walk" map, Nancy, who once was in the same talent show as Bob, recalls the day in 1962 or 1963 when Bob went to visit his mother; the owner made an announcement over the public address system: "This is W. R. Feldman. We have a celebrity in woman's wear -- Mr. Bob Die-Lin!" (via the Star Tribune, Sept. 25, 2005.)

And this is Feldman's in the late 1970's. It closed in 1994.

Toby Thompson in his book Positively Main Street describes having lunch and interviewing Bob's mother down the street from Feldman's at the Howard Restaurant (now Mike's - next to the old L+B). They sat in a booth by the front. They parted what seems like the best of friends, but she asked him some tough questions during the interview about what he had written in the Village Voice - the articles which later became Positively Fourth Street."

The interview is a fascinating 10-page chapter in his book and well worth the read along with the rest of the book which gives great insights into the future rock legend and Nobel prize winner.

(photo via Nanci and Allen Garon website)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #4A: Collier's Bar-B-Q (1928 4th Avenue East)

Now, before we continue west along Howard Street, we are going to take a quick detour at the corner of 4th Ave East and go 1/2 a block north, and, on the right, we will find a building that until recently was The Hong Kong Kitchen (Chinese) Restaurant.

In Bob's day this was Collier's Bar-B-Q and Bar, a restaurant, and Bob's band, The Golden Chords played there occasionally.

According to LeRoy Hoikkala (at B-Dylan.com) interviewed by Lars Lindh, the restaurant was owned by a family called the Van Feldt's. . . (I'm paraphrasing here) "On Sunday's, when they were closed, but cleaning up and cutting potatoes for french fries . . . we would set up (our instruments) at the front door and play . . . and kids would hear us from Howard Street and come around as we jammed. Bob was playing guitar and harmonica then. On Sundays kids would cruise through town in their cars, and they would drive by, too."

Echo Helstrom told much they same story to Toby Thompson in Positively Main Street: " Right there in that corner is where Bob and his band used to play. Collier's would let them come in on weekends . . . and they'd move the booths away from the window and face the back of the room. They were so loud you could hear them all the way up the block! Like I told you, Bob always had his amplifiers too high."

Here's a side view of the restaurant so you can see how big Collier's Bar-B-Q and Bar was. The restaurants and stores in Hibbing are longer than in many cities. They were given ample room to build on.

Here's a partial view of what Collier's used to look like back in Bob's day.

This is a view of the block from Google Street maps taken in 2008. Since this photo was taken, the three buildings between the old Collier's building and the building on the far right have been taken down.

In this photo I superimposed the Collier building and two others over the Google Street View photo from 2008.

And in this photo, I superimposed the old photo of the block, featuring a partial view of Collier's Bar-B-Q, over the modern day block. (Click to ENLARGE)

Before we leave here, if you look up the street you can see the Hibbing Train Depot.

I would have assumed that Dylan would take trains here to Duluth, but they stopped passenger trains before Dylan's time and mostly freight came through here. If Dylan didn't take his car or motorcycle down to Duluth he could always catch the Greyhound Bus from a few streets south. You may know that Greyhound was founded in Hibbing. More on that later.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #5AA: The Masonic Temple (317 East Howard Street @ 4th Avenue East)

The Masonic Temple was located on the second floor of the building that now houses a Goodwill Center.

Dylan played here at some dances with one of his bands.

This is what it looked like when Bob was a teenager.

It was a Moose Lodge for a while, then became a Masonic Temple. The Moose Lodge moved down the street to the corner of 5th Avenue East.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #5: Crippa Music (313 East Howard Street)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #5)

This is where Dylan bought records, music equipment, and sheet music. His parents let him charge things to their account. More famously, this is supposedly where the owner mail-ordered Dylan's first around-the-neck harmonica holder (aka harmonica rack) for him.

Toby Thompson visited Crippa's four times while writing Positively Main Street. In the first instance the saleslady said that Dylan's own albums didn't sell as well as those by musicians who sang his songs like Peter, Paul, & Mary or Joan Baez. She also said that she ordered Dylan's first harmonica and harmonica rack for him. Dylan had to draw a picture of the rack for her because she had never heard of one.

She said Dylan had come in ever since he was a little boy and listened to everything from classical music to blues, country, and rock 'n roll. The store owner, Chet Crippa, who was also there, said Bob had ordered all of Hank Williams' records "at one fell swoop." Chet Crippa said he also outfitted Bob's first rock band, too: including amplifiers, mikes, and guitars. picks and strings. He said Dylan at first had a "beat-up" Sears and Roebuck guitar with a leather strap.

At a later visit Toby himself bought a harmonica rack from the saleslady, as they now stocked them.

Still later, when he visited with Echo Helstrom, as they visited spots at which she and Bob had hung out, she said that, as a lark, Bob used to ask the salespeople if they had very obscure blues records and he would then feign disappointment when the salesperson said they didn't have them.

John Bucklen, young Bob's high school buddy, described the visits he and Bob made to Crippa's this way on the DVD Tangled Up In Bob:

"We'd go there and we'd ask for a record they didn't have. We'd say: "Do you have any music by the Cadillacs?" or "Do you have any music by the Turbans?" (both being 1958 doo-wop groups). They would say "what?" and we'd leave, laughing, saying to each other 'Ha ha, these guys know nothing!"

At his last visit Toby describes seeing Nashville Skyline in stock and Milton Glaser's iconic 1966 Dylan poster with the psychedelic rainbow hair on the wall.

This is Bob's former girlfriend Echo Helstrom in front of Crippa's as she was showing author Toby Thompson around Hibbing several years after she and Bob stopped going out together.

(photo by Toby Thompson)

This is what the front of Crippa's looks like now in 2025.

Here's the old Crippa's over the modern day space

And here is Echo at Crippa's, superimposed over the modern day space.

(photo by Toby Thompson)

For many years Crippa's had become another music store named Rupar Music. Here it is in 2008.

(photo by Toby Thompson)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #5A: State Theater (307 East Howard Street)

Two doors down from Crippa's former site is site #4A: The State Theater.

This movie theater was owned by Bob's relatives on his mother's side and Bob saw many movies here or free, courtesy of his relatives.

Bob's uncle's on his mother's side, Max, Julius, and Sam Edelstein together owned five movie theaters in Hibbing: The State, The Lybba, the Victory (later, The New Victory), The Gopher, and the Hibbing Drive-In which was on the southern outskirts of town.

Many of Bob's songs like "Joey," "Hurricane," or "Black Diamond Bay" are sometime referred to as "cinematic" in their story line and presentation. Bob had a big background in cinema from his uncle's theaters here in Hibbing and and also from the art houses of Greenwich Village.

(photo by Toby Thompson)

Here's a picture of the State Theater in it's heyday during a Hibbing parade. (click to enlarge)

(photo via Hibbing Historical Society)

Here's a color view of the State Theater.

(photo via the Cinema Treasures website)

From here we're going to go a block west, to the middle of the south side of the block. This is where we will find #208 East Howard Street, a former music shop that Bob frequented.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #5B: Braman Music (208 East Howard Street)

This is site #5B - where Braman Music was located. This is where it has been written that Bob took music lessons. Presently it is a store called Ohana.

Now go down to the next block and stay on the same, southern, side of the street.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #5C: The Gopher Theater (118 East Howard Street)

Go to # 118 East Howard Street. I circled it. This building was formerly one of the movie theaters that Bob's uncles owned. It was called the Gopher Theater.

Here's a close up of 118 East Howard Street which housed the Gopher Theater owned by Dylan's uncles, the Zimmerman Brothers.

Note the strong horizontal lines across the top. They show up in the old photos below.

Here's what the Gopher looked like around Bob's time.

(photo source: Cinema Treasures)

And here is the old photo superimposed over the modern day building, so if you visit Howard Street you can picture what it was like.

And here's what the Gopher Theater used to look like inside.

The Gopher Theater opened prior to 1925 and was called The Garden Theater. Around 1930 (some say 1939) it was rebranded as the Gopher Theater with an updated facade. It held approximately 434 people.

Why the Gopher name? Minnesota has been called the "Gopher State" since the mid-1800s. The name came from an 1857 political cartoon that depicted railroad tycoons as striped gophers pulling a cart full of legislators. The nickname stuck, and the University of Minnesota later adopted the "Golden Gophers" as its athletic identity.

(photo via Cinema Treasures)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #5D: Sammy's Pizza (106 East Howard Street)

The next stop on the Dylan Map is #5C - Sammy's Pizza Restaurant - located at 106 East Howard Street. You'll see the name "Sammy's" on the long black awning.

It is a few doors down from where the Gopher Theater was at 118 East Howard.

Young Bob Zimmerman used to eat pizza at Sammy's with his pals. Sammy was named after Sam Perella who opened the pizza parlor in 1954. (Sammy's may have been across the street at number 107 and called La Pizzeria when Bob lived in Hibbing. Sammy owned several pizzerias and they often moved around.)

Toby Thompson in his book Positively Main Street described Sammy's - then known as Sammy's Pizza Palace - like this: "A classic malt shop. No beer with your pizza here, just soda pop and coffee. No tables either - but wooden booths - like an Archie comic book. Stuffed deer heads and poorly mounted wall-eye pike (ed. a type of fish) for the decor. The girls were . . . stylish, the boys were the opposite: big pompadours with gobs of Brylcreem . . . white sox and black loafers.

The Hibbing Chamber of Commerce is located across the street at number 109 East Howard, and they usually have brochures about Hibbing available.

This is the interior of Sammy's. It was rebuilt with a modern look after a fire.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #6: Stone's Clothing (102 East Howard Street)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #6)

Next door to Sammy's you will find the former site of Stone's Clothing located on the ground floor of 102 East Howard Street at the corner of 1st Street. The store is now a Chinese restaurant called the China Buffet.

When Bob was a child, Stone's, named after his mother's family, was a clothing store run by his grandmother Florence Stone and his Uncle Lewis Edelstein - his mother Beatty's brother.

You can see the sign for Stone's Clothing Store (for men) on the right side of this photo under the two American flags. (click photo twice to make VERY LARGE)

We are now about to go south from number 6 to number 7 on the original Hibbing Library Dylan map.

That finished our westward walk down East Howard Street, we are now going to go south on First Street, which also goes by the name Business Route 169.

A few words about the street names.

First Street goes North/South and is the main dividing line between the streets of the center of Hibbing. For example East Howard starts at First and goes east, and West Howard starts at First Street and goes west.

Similarly the Avenues also start here, too. To the East is 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, then 7th Avenue , where Bob Dylan lived. To the west are West 2nd Avenue, West 3rd Avenue etc.

The other thing that might be helpful in your visit is that all the streets are numbered starting at First Street in North HIbbing, which is 2 miles north of Hibbing. So by the time you get to downtown Hibbing you are at 20th Street, which is what Howard Street used to be named. From there most of Central Hibbing that you will be visiting, going south, is in 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th Street. Bob lived at 7th Ave East and Dupont.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #7: The Lybba Theater (2135 1st Avenue)

(Note: It is now the Sunrise Deli Lybba Restaurant)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #7)

Stop #7 on the Dylan tour takes us to the Lybba Theater at 2135 1st Avenue, just about a block and a half down from Howard Street.

The Lybba Theater was one of the five movie theaters in HIbbing owned by Dylan's uncles on his mother's side. Their last name was Edelstein. It was their father that started them in the movie business. His name was B.H. (Benjamin Harold) Edelstein. His wife was named Lybba and he named the theater after her. She was Bob's great grandmother.

The Lybba Theater opened in 1947 and closed in 1982. It had 400 seats and converted into a twin cinema in 1980.

Today most of the theater has been made into apartments. At the street side is a deli called The Sunrise Deli Lybba Restaurant.

Here's a close-up of the front.

Here's what it looked like on opening day in 1947.

(photo via Cinema Treasures)

And here's a 1963 crowd of kids going to see Walt Disney's Swiss Family Robinson in the year that Dylan's album Freewheein' came out.

(photo via Cinema Treasures)

Lastly, this photo and caption about the theater came from a local newspaper. Business was brisk.

To get to our next stop we are going to drive SOUTH TWO BLOCKS on 1st Avenue and take a right onto 23rd Street

Continue south on 1st Avenue.

On your right you will see the Homer bar. Next to it is a marquee. That was the marquee in front of another Hibbing movie theater, but one not owned by Bob's relatives, called the Homer Theater.

Now TAKE A RIGHT on to West 23rd Street.. (You are now going west)

Continue down West 23rd Street one block..

When you reach 2nd Ave West, take a left.

Proceed down 2nd Avenue West for about 5 houses..

PopSpots Dylan Guide #8: Agudath Achim Synagogue (2320 2nd Avenue West)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #8)

We are now coming to site #8 on the Hibbing Bob Dylan Walk map. It is the former Agudath Achim Synagogue, where the Zimmerman family attended temple and where 13-year-old Bobby Zimmerman had his bar mitzvah.

A bar mitzvah is a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for a boy, usually at age 13, marking his religious responsibility under Jewish law.

The former synagogue is a white building that looks like a church. It is located on your left at 2320 2nd Avenue West.

It is currently a private residence so please stay on the sidewalk.

Here's a view of the other side. Note the stained glass windows.

The name "Agudas Achim" is a Hebrew term that translates to "Association of Brothers," "Society of Brothers," "Gathering of Brothers," or "Unity of Brethren."

And here's the front door.

This shows what the building looked like when it was first built in North Hibbing as a church.

In the picture it is being moved to Alice from what is now Old North Hibbing.

The steeples will later be removed.

(source: Minnesota Historical Society)

This is what it looked like when it was still a temple in 1972.

(source: Minnesota Historical Society)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #8A: Baby Bob Picture (2418 2nd Avenue West)

To get to the next site on the PopSpots Dylan Tour of Hibbing, go 1 block south and find 2418 2nd Avenue West. It's on the east side of the street, as the temple was.

It's where this photo of Baby Bob was taken. He's on the right.

Here is the photo colorized.

Bob is about 4 years old in the photo. The photo comes from Barry Tusin from Chicago. His aunt, Ruth Rovell, lived next door to the Agudath Achim Synagogue at 2318 2nd Avenue West (according to an old Hibbing phone book at the library) and was a friend of Dylan's mother, Beatty.

Beatty used to drop Bob off to play with Barry's cousin Jackie Rovell (one of the girls) who was, on this day, playing with another neighbor friend who lived here, a block away, at 2418 2nd Avenue West..

The Zimmerman's were living in Duluth at the time, but often drove the hour-and-a-half trip north to visit relatives in Hibbing.

This is a picture of the house in the background of the picture. It is located at 2418 2nd Avenue West.

And here's the PopSpot of that: the old photo superimposed over the original location.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #8B: Hautala Music Store (2512 1st Avenue)

Continue 1 block south on 1st Avenue and cross the street to number 2512 1st Avenue, which will be number 17a of the Popspot's Guide to Bob Dylan's Hibbing.

This was the former location of Hautala Music, a store where Bob and his friend John Bucklen bought guitars together.

Bob and his friend John Bucklen both ordered $95 solid-body Supro electric guitars with a gold sunburst on them from Hautala Music and got a discount for buying them together. The store was run by a chain cigar-smoking man of Finnish descent named Hemming Hautala.

Here's a picture of the inside of Hautala Music from an unknown date, when it was located across the street at 2218 1st Ave.

Now keep driving down to the end of the block. This will be 24th Street, where you will take a left.

Proceed east two blocks on 24th Street. Initially, you'll cross First Avenue. Then, when you come to 2nd Avenue East, take a left.

When you come to 2nd Avenue East, turn left and head north.

Head north on 2nd Ave East (between 24th and 23rd streets) and drive to the end of the block.

Stop the car before you come to the end of the block at 23rd Street. LOOK TO YOUR RIGHT.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #9: former site of the Alice Grade School (2300 2nd Avenue East)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #9)

ON YOUR RIGHT you will see is a large parking lot and playground. This is where the Alice School, a grammar school, used to be from about 1920 to 1980. This is where Bob went to first grade in 1958.

This is is a picture of the front of the Alice School, taken from the street you are on - 2nd Avenue East.

The Alice School is said to be named after Alice Merritt the wife of Leonidas Merritt one of he founders of the town of Alice, which later was renamed Hibbing.

And here is the Alice School superimposed over the space it had been on for many years.

Here's a colorized view of the school - more the way Bob would have viewed it.2

On the left is the Alice School from above. The image on the left is from 1957, right about when Dylan went there. As you can see, the longer section of the school is perpendicular to East 23rd Street, so the front of the school faces west.

The red rectangle on the right shows the Alice School's old footprint.

This is a picture of six-year-old Bobby Zimmerman from his 1st grade class photo outside the Alice School in 1947.

He's the boy in the striped shirt caught looking away from the camera.

(source: Hibbing Public Library)

And here is that shot colorized..

(source: Hibbing Public Library)

Here's that shot from further back, showing all the kids in his class and Bob's teacher.

And here's that shot colorized. (Not all the faces came out perfectly in the Chat GBT colorization)

The class photo was taken on the south side of the school next to a drainpipe that you can see next to the teacher.

You can see the drainpipe in the next picture of the school, which has a different angle.

In this 1979 picture of the school, I put an arrow showing the drainpipe that was next to Bob's teacher.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #9A: former site of the Alice Apartments (2323 3rd Avenue East.)

This is #9A on the PopSpots Dylan Guide. It was the location of the Alice Apartments, which have now been replaced by another residential apartment building.

Bob and his family lived here for a year when they first moved to Hibbing.

The buildings in the yellow box were called the Alice Apartments. There were four apartments. The address was 2323 3rd Avenue East. This photo is from 1957.

When Bob's family first moved to Hibbing, Bob and his mother, father, and brother David lived in one of the four apartments here with Bob's recently-widowed grandmother, Florence.

In an interview for the box set Biograph in 1985 Dylan remembers: "We slept in the living room of my grandma's house for about a year, maybe two. I slept on a rollaway bed, that's all I know."

Bob would go to first grade right next door at the Alice school.

The family would soon move several blocks away to their own house at 2425 7th Avenue East where, as Clinton Helyin writes in his book Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades, Dylan lived within walking distance of his Uncle Maurice and Grandmother Anna Zimmerman (2620 3rd Avenue West), his uncle Paul Zimmerman (3505 3rd Avenue West), as well as his great uncles Julius, Samuel, and Max Edelstein, and his Uncle Vernon and Uncle Lewis and Aunt Irene.

This apartment complex at 2313 3rd Avenue East replaced the Alice Apartments where Bob's family once lived for about a year's time when he first moved to Hibbing.

Now go up to 23rd Street and take a right.

Go straight (EAST) on 23rd Street for 2 blocks.

You will soon come up to a large-domed building on the right. It is the Memorial Auditorium. The arrow points to the Auditorium.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #10: Hibbing Memorial Building (400 East 23rd Street)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #10)

The Hibbing Memorial Building (also known as The Hibbing Arena) is #10 on the Popspots Dylan Guide.

The basement also contains two other sites on the PopSpots Dylan Guide: 1) The HIbbing Historical Society, and 2) The Little Theater. They will be discussed below.

The inside of the large rounded building is primarily taken up by a hockey rink.

Here's another view that shows the whole space.

The Hibbing/Chisholm hockey team is called the "Bluejackets" - a name derived from the region's mining history, since blue work jackets were commonly worn by iron ore miners on the Mesabi Range.

Next to the hockey rink - in a separate building - is a curling club. In curling, teams compete to slide a 42-pound polished stone down the ice to come closest to a target.

This is the main entrance lobby to the Memorial Building. It was here that young Bobby Zimmerman, while playing with one of his early rock and roll bands, came face-to-face with one of his idols, the 5-foot 9-inch pro-wrestler Gorgeous George (real name George Wagner), then at his peak of popularity, and said to be the highest paid athlete in the United States at that time.

Here's a picture of Gorgeous George prepping for a performance with the help of his personal valet named Jeffries. Their over-the-top act captivated millions of TV viewers in the early days of television.

From ChatGBT: "Jefferies would spray the ring with disinfectant and perfume, lay out George's robes, and generally act in a deferential butler-like manner to enhance the pomp and arrogance of George's character."

From Wikipedia: "Bob Dylan said meeting George changed his life. In Dylan's book Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan recounts a story of meeting Gorgeous George in person. He wrote, "He winked and seemed to mouth the phrase, "You're making it come alive." I never forgot it. It was all the recognition and encouragement I would need for years."

This sign in the lobby tells you that downstairs you can see "The Little Theater" where Dylan once played, as well as you can visit the Hibbing Historical Society & Museum. So let's go downstairs.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #10A: The Little Theater (400 East 23rd Street, basement)

In the basement of the Memorial Building there's also a theater that seats 450 people called "The Little Theater."

The theater is Popspots Dylan Guide #10A. It is where Dylan once played with his group The Golden Chords.

Here's Bob playing onstage at the Little Theater with The Golden Chords in 1958.

Most sources say it was on Feb. 14, 1958, some say March 1, 1958. Both agree it was during the Winter Frolic Talent Contest, sponsored by the Hibbing Chamber of Commerce.

From left to right, the Golden Chords were: Monte Edwardson (guitar), LeRoy Hoikkala (on drums; note the same spelling on the drum with a capital "R" in LeRoy), and Robert Zimmerman, also on guitar, and on vocals.

At this performance Bob is said to have sung Little Richard's raucous song "Jenny, Jenny," and a slow song by the Flamingos called "I'll be Home."

LeRoy Hoikkala has said they they called themselves "The Golden Chords" because Bob could (play) chords beautifully on piano and guitar and his (LeRoy's) drums were "sparkling gold" in color. Thus "Golden Chords."

The Golden Chords was Dylan's second band. They came after the Shadow Blasters - Dylan's band formed in 1957 with Bob (then on piano), Bill Marinac (guitar), Larry Fabbro (bass), and Chuck Nara (drums)

(photo by Monte Edwardson's mother)

Here's the stage in 2025.

Here's the "PopSpot" of that photo - the photo superimposed over the modern day stage.

Here's another look at the Golden Chords: Monte Edwardson, LeRoy Hoikkala, and Bobby Zimmerman.

And a colorized look at the band.

Here's the view looking out from the stage.

Off to the side they have the picture of The Golden Chords performing on the wall for visitors to view.

And here's the scene 1950's style.

This diagram of the basement level of the auditorium shows the location of the Little Theater, where Bob and his band played, as the letter B.

The Hibbing Historical Museum is in Room A.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #10B: The Hibbing Historical Society (400 East 23rd Street)

Here's a photo of the Hibbing Historical Society & Museum (It's open 10:00 am - 2:00 pm, Tues-Fri and also by appointment; There is no admission fee).

While they don't have too much about Bob, there are many interesting exhibits of the life in Hibbing that was going on before and during Dylan's time to give you a great insight into what it was like to grow up in Hibbing. The displays include:

• A 3-D scale model of all the buildings of Old HIbbing in 1893 and 1913
• Photos of "Old Hibbing"
• Mining and Logging displays
• Displays about "moving" Old Hibbing
• Uniforms worn by miners and Greyhound bus drivers
• Displays of famous Hibbing residents over the years - including Bob

This is a recreation of Old Hibbing before the move south.

Here's a mining exhibit.

This is the entry on Bob on the wall of famous Hibbingites.

Going back outside, here's a picture of what the Memorial Auditorium looked like on a snowy Minnesota Day in the 1930's.

And here's an overhead view showing, beside the curved-roof main arena, the large flat one-story building, built in 1942, that contains the seven curling rinks and sits adjacent to the parking lot.

(photo by Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #11: The Zimmerman Residence (Bob's childhood home) (2425 7th Avenue East - also known as 2425 Bob Dylan Way)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #11)

Young Bob Zimmerman lived in this house that his parents owned from age 6 to 19, during the years he went from 2nd grade all the way until he was in 12th grade -- 11 years.

He went to the same (enormous) school for all those years, It was about 2+1/2 football fields (2/10th of a mile) distance from his front door to the front door of the school. And during the three winter months the temperature was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

The house was surrounded by similar one and two story houses. The neighborhood was about a half mile south of "downtown" Hibbing (i.e. Howard Street, a 12-minute walk away.)

The number 2425 7th Avenue East meant that it was between 24th and 25th street (most of residential Hibbing is between 19th and 37th Street) and 7th Avenue East means it was 7 blocks east of the main north/south Street - 1st Avenue (a.k.a. Business Highway 169).

The two story stucco house was built in 1939 in a modified Mediterranean style called Italian Modern. It had a nearly flat roof, which was a little different than most houses in the area, and a semi-detached garage.

Introducing Bill Pagel, the owner of two of Bob's childhood home, and his tours of Dylan's Hibbing house.

ABOUT BILL PAGEL - DYLAN COLLECTOR

Bill Pagel is a longtime Bob Dylan enthusiast, collector, and preservationist who lives in Hibbing, near the house where Dylan grew up. A retired pharmacist by profession, Pagel turned his passion for Dylan memorabilia into both a vocation and a life's mission.

Over the decades he has assembled one of the most impressive collections in the Dylan-fan world, including tens of thousands of photographs, concert posters, manuscripts, yearbooks, and ephemera.

One of Pagel's major undertakings has been acquiring and restoring two of Dylan's former residences. In 2001, he bought Dylan's early childhood home in Duluth (a two-story residence at 519 North Third Avenue East) in which the Zimmermans lived on the second floor), which he has worked to return to its mid-20th century condition.

In 2019, Pagel purchased the Hibbing home where Dylan lived from 1948 to 1959 (at 2425 Seventh Ave. East), paying a premium with the intention of preserving and restoring it.

Although he doesn't run them as open museums full time, Pagel offers tours by appointment and shares artifacts with other Dylan heritage institutions.

Beyond preserving physical structures, Pagel sees himself more as an archivist and steward of Dylan's early life than as an interpreter of his art.

He also manages the website boblinks.com, a comprehensive archive for Dylan concert setlists and related material, which has drawn millions of visitors over the years.

While he has loaned or exhibited pieces from his collection at museums in Duluth, Chicago, and elsewhere, he rarely sells items and seeks to primarily just preserve Dylan's legacy.

Bob's House - Exterior Front

(Above: Bill Pagel welcomes two guests to Dylan's childhood home in Hibbing.)

Fun Facts About Master Dylan Collector Bill Pagel (source:Jon Bream / Minnesota Star Tribune May 21, 2020)

TOURING BOB DYLAN's HOUSE IN HIBBING with Bill Pagel.

Bill Pagel gives approximately 45-minute hour tours of Bob Dylan's House during which you will see all the rooms of the house, original furnishings from the Zimmerman years, several rare photos of Bob and you will have a visit to a small museum of Dylan memorabilia in the wood-paneled basement playroom. Bill has many fascinating stories about Bob's life, extensive knowledge of Dylan history and will answer all questions that you have. You will learn how living in the house and living in Hibbing played a big part in Bob's later life.

You can arrange a private tour by emailing Bill at billp61@boblinks.com, calling or texting him at: 608-317-5232 (preferably during daylight hours), or writing him at 2424 6th Avenue East, Hibbing, MN 55746.

Bill''s tours are free but he accepts donations toward the upkeep and of both the Hibbing House and Bob's birthhouse in Duluth.

Anyone, anywhere wishing to donate toward Bills's projects is free to do so to help preserve Bob's legacy into the future when perhaps the houses become museums. Here are two methods:

• Paypal, Zelle : billp61@boblinks.com

• Venmo: @William-Pagel-4

A Sign on the Front of the House

Bob's House - Side View. A small door leads up to the kitchen, making it easier to bring in groceries. Bob's bedroom window is on the second floor, at left.

Bob's House - A view showing the back of the house.

There was no stairway up to the top of the garage roof from the ground.

Bob's House - Side View

The two-car garage on the far left in the photo was owned by the Zimmerman's but they rented it out to a bakery as a storage space according to Howard Sounes in Down the Highway - The Life of Bob Dylan.

Bob's House - The Back Yard

At left are two metal clothesline supports. Bob and his friends used to swing on them.

In the center, another door leads to the kitchen. The two small windows let light into the kitchen breakfast nook.

Bob's House - The north side

Aerial view of the Zimmerman house.

(photo by KARE - TV)

Bob Dylan Drive

East 7th Avenue - the street that runs north-south past Bob Dylan's boyhood home, was renamed Bob Dylan Drive in 2005. There are signs for "Bob Dylan Drive" at all the street corners from the Zimmerman house north to Howard Street. Locals use both names.

(photo from Wikipedia)

7th Avenue East also becomes "Bob Dylan Drive" in 2005.

The street name was changed to "Bob Dylan Drive" in 2005 after a petition started by Linda Strobeck-Hocking one of the former owners of the (now closed) Dylan-themed restaurant called Zimmy's. (More on Zimmy's later)

Here's Linda discussing the petition:

"A German man doing a story for German Associated Press said you ought to get a street sign to Dylan's house so people would recognize that the town's "out there" (for Bob) It would be great for the people that come here traveling to see that. . . I had to get 80% of the residents to sign a petition that it was all right with them. . . . I took my clipboard and marched up and down the street in January.. . . .and it was received well . . . . most people were tickled to death that we were doing something cool like that."

(source: www.hibbinghistory.org/walking-tour track 3.

Looking north from in front of Bob's house along 7th Avenue East (Bob Dylan Way). This was his school route.

Looking south from in front of Bob's house along 7th Avenue East (Bob Dylan Way).

The house as seen on the real estate website Zillow.

The house is not for sale, but it's interesting to see that the whole house is only considered to be 759* square feet. Zillow says it has only one bathroom but it has two.

*(The median size of a new single-family home in the U.S. was around 2,200 to 2,400 square feet in recent years . . . . The average size of homes has significantly increased over the past 75 years, nearly tripling from 909 sq. ft. in 1949 to an average of 2,480 sq. ft. in 2021, but has recently begun shrinking. )

Bob Dylan in his driveway testing out his friend Dale Boutang's motorcycle in 1956.

Dale Boutang was the cousin of Leroy Hoikkala, the drummer in Bob's band the Golden Chords.

Dale and Bob are pictured here with Dale's Harley 74 in 1956 when Bob was 15. (This would have been in the year before Dylan turned 16 - the the legal age one could drive a motorcycle in Minnesota in the 1950's).

The photograph was taken by Bob's mother, Beatty Zimmerman, in the driveway of their home at 2425 7th Avenue East in Hibbing. Later Bob convinced his parents to buy him his own motorcycle, a Harley 45.

The photo is from the collection of Leroy Hoikkala and Sharon Ness.

This is the location in present day.

And here I've superimposed the picture over the actual location.

Now: A look inside Bob's childhood home house at 2425 East 7th Street, Hibbing.

Note: As there are some private Dylan family photos throughout the house, in the interest of privacy, Bill Pagel does not allow any photos to be taken by anyone touring the house. All the interior shots shown here are from online media sources

When you are in Hibbing you can usually visit Dylan's house. Bill Pagel, the owner of the house, puts a sign out front with his phone number for when he is available for tours. You can also email him and schedule a visit at: billp61@boblinks.com

BOB'S HOUSE - THE INTERIOR

NOTE: I generated the three 3-dimensional illustrations of Bob's house (below) using outlines I drew processed through Chat GPT, based on my one-time tour of the house, so some of the room sizes might be off a bit.

The Zimmerman House - The Layout

There are four rooms on the ground floor: The living room, the dining room, the kitchen and a bathroom. A small corridor from the back of the kitchen leads to a side door; another corridor leads to the garage.

A stairway, which can be entered from the living room or the kitchen, leads to the upstairs.

On the second floor there were three bedrooms: one for Bob and his little brother David, one for his parents, Abe and Beatty, and one for Dylan's grandmother on his mother's side, Florence Edelstein Stone.

There is also a full basement. Half is unfinished and for appliances; half is finished with wood paneling and turned into a play area. There was also a bar for parties.

The First Floor

The 1st floor (up some steps) has:

• a foyer
• a living room with a fireplace, couches, and a piano
• a dining room with large table
• a kitchen with a breakfast nook (an enclosed table area, extending out from the kitchen toward the backyard - common in houses of the 1930's and 1940's)
• a bathroom (most average-sized houses in Hibbing were built with only one bathroom)
• and four stairways leading upstairs, down to the basement, out the side of the house and into the garage.

The Second Floor

The 2nd Floor (up a central stairway, accessed from the living room or the kitchen) has:

• Bob and his brother's David's room (at the back of the house, near the garage; their beds perpendicular to each other )
• the parent's room (larger)
• and a room for Beatty's mother (Bob's grandmother, Florence)
• a bathroom (added after the house was built) (I did not include this)
• a door leading from the top of the stairs out to a small sundeck above the kitchen breakfast nook (where Bob used to play guitar). And from the sundeck, Bob could walk onto the roof of the garage,

The Basement

The Basement (accessed from stairs from the kitchen) has:

• You enter down the stairs into a bare unfinished concrete room filled with appliances like washing machines. This take up half the basement.
• The other half of the basement is a blond-colored knotty-pine, wood-paneled wreck room that has a hand-made built-in bar and a fireplace
• Bill Pagel has added some glass display booths with Dylan memorabilia in them to show visitors.
• On a tour, Bill will also show you Bob's initials - "RZ" - for Robert Zimmerman - that Bob carved or etched into the wall in his youth.

The Garage

• A one-car garage, attached to the house, accessed by a stairway near the kitchen
• Bob, and some of his high school bands, used to practice here

Ground Floor - The living room.

(photo source: Clint Austin/Duluth Media Group)

The centerpiece of the living room was the fireplace, very essential in those cold environs. There was also a piano where Bob used to play. A stairway led from the living room to the upstairs.

Mahogany Radio & Turntable

The Zimmerman's also had a 78-rpm record player in the living room according to Bob in the documentary No Direction Home.

"There was a big, mahogany radio that had a 78 turntable when you opened the top. And I opened it up one day and there was a country record on there called "Drifting Too Far From Shore." (A gospel song written by Charles Moody. Dylan may have heard the 1936 version recorded by the Monroe Brothers). "The sound of that record made me feel that I was somebody else. that I was not even born to the right parents or something."

The view from the front door entrance.

(photo source: Jenn Ackerman/Getty/The Washington Post)

Ground floor - the dining room

The dining room was to the right as you walked in. There's a door to the kitchen at left.

(photo source: Clint Austin/Duluth Media Group)

Ground floor - the kitchen

This is not a picture of the actual kitchen, but the kitchen looks a lot like this, and there is a breakfast nook just like this one, that extends from the kitchen out into the back yard area.

The breakfast nook

As you can see from the back yard exterior shots above, there is a little flat roof deck above the breakfast nook, where Dylan used to practice guitar. A door leads to it from the second floor.

When Toby Thompson interviewed B. J. Rolfzen, Dylan's 11th grade English teacher, for his book Positively Main Street, Rolfzenn told a story of bumping into Bob at the Zimmerman house after Bob's father's funeral. Rolfson walked in on Bob smoking a cigarette alone in the breakfast nook. Bob politely got up, shook his ex-teacher's hand firmly, talked a while about the school and his latest album, John Wesley Harding, and Dylan ended by telling Rolfzen that he should listen to the album because . . . "you're the one taught me everything I know!"

The second floor

This (below) is a picture of Bob's childhood bedroom. His brother David's bed was perpendicular to Bob's - along the wall on the right.

On the tour of the bedroom, Bill Pagel will show you some of Bob's personal 45-rpm records (that Pagel has collected over the years) and a period record player and tv set from Dylan's era.

Bob's taste in that era would have included country (The Grand Old Opry), rockabilly, R&B, and early rock-and-roll hits from artists like Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Ray, "whose voice and style I fell in love with. . . . I loved his style, wanted to dress like him too."

And, famously, Dylan's quote in his high school yearbooks was "to join Little Richard."

(photo source: Clint Austin/Duluth Media Group)

This is the view out Bob's window (to the left of the head of his bed) of the southeast corner of 7th Avenue East and Dupont Road

(photo by Owen Temple)

A door on the second floor leads to a small flat roof over the kitchen breakfast nook.

Young Bob used to practice guitar here sitting in the sun. From this deck, you could also walk down a few steps and walk on the garage roof.

(screen-capture (adjusted) via WDIO News, 1988)

When Bob Visited His Old House

From an interview with Angel Marolt, former owner of Bob's childhood home.

"(When Bob visited) . . . he recognized the (dining room) plates right away., "Those are my mother's plates. And the nook that was there and the tables and chairs." . . . I brought him up to the bedroom and the first thing he said was, " I can't believe this bedroom is so small". . . .Then he went out on the deck. We had a deck going up the stairs over the garage and he said "I used to play my guitar up here all the time, and the neighbors hated it. They kept saying "Why is he strumming up here and why is he making all this noise!". . . .(Angel Marolt who was also a former secretary at Hibbing High had grown up in the house which she bought from his (Dylan's mother Beatty,) mother in 1966, Marolt lived in the house with her family until they sold it to another private buyer in the 1980's.

(Found at www.hibbinghistory.org walking tour audio - track 3)

There is another well-known story about one day, when Bob and Echo were upstairs listening to music in his room, his grandmother came home, and, since Bob was not supposed to have girls in the house when his family was not present, he had to first hide Echo in a closet, and then have her crawl out the window to the back porch where he helped here down to the ground.

The Basement

One half of the basement was turned into a playroom with pine walls and a fireplace. The other half, left unfinished, was used for laundry. There was no need for a boiler as the city of Hibbing had a central boiler bringing steam heat to its residents.

Bil Pagel has added some glass display booths with Dylan memorabilia in them to show visitors. There is also an authentic sign from Highway 61.

On a tour, Bill will also show you Bob's initials - "RZ" - for Robert Zimmerman - that Bob carved or etched into the wall in his youth.

The photo of young Bob (below) was taken in the basement. You can just barely make out the decorative rounded wooden valance that went around the room to the right of Bob's head. The white "soundproof" ceiling tiles are still there.

Here are two early Bob photos both most likely taken in the house.

Note on both that there is wallpaper next to the curtain with a cowboy/saguaro theme.

The following are some images of the house from 2006 before Bill Pagel returned the interior to look like it was while the Zimmermans were there in the 1950's.

The photographs came from a 2006 documentary entitled Tangled Up In Bob - a documentary which the narrator, Natalie Goldberg, an author, visited Bob's house, the high school, and other parts of Hibbing, and interviewed some of Bob's friends and teachers from his high school years.

The film was directed by Mary Feidt. and released via Feido Films. The DVD is now out of print, but can sometimes be found on Ebay.

(screen-capture from the doc: Tangled Up In Bob (2006)

The front entrance door at right, and the entrance to the dining room at left.

(screen-capture from the doc:Tangled Up In Bob (2006)

The Dining Room. After you entered the house, this was to the right. The kitchen entrance was off to the left of this room, behind the dark green wall at left.

(screen-capture from the doc: Tangled Up In Bob (2006)

This arched wall niche allowed one, to look from the front alcove, up the steps that lead to the second floor.

(screen-capture from the doc: Tangled Up In Bob (2006)

Top of Stairs

(screen-capture from the doc: Tangled Up In Bob (2006)

Bob's room in a picture taken in 2002 for National Geographic by Catherine Karnow.

(source: by Catherine Karnow for National Geographic from "Bob Dylan's Hometown" October 2002)

This is a photo of young Bobby Zimmerman's highchair taken in 2020 for the Minnesota Star Tribune. Famed Dylan collector Bill Pagel purchased it from a Hibbing resident. It is not usually part of Pagel's' permanent display on the house.

(source: photo by Kevin Martin for The Minnesota Star Tribune from a May 21, 2020 article called: "Collector owns both of Bob Dylan's childhood homes - and his highchair" by Jon Bream. The article is online and has many photos of Bob memorabilia owned by Bill Pagel.)

In the late 1980's the owners of the Zimmerman house painted a large copy of Dylan's album Blood on the Tracks on the garage door. Dylan fan Dave Meador posted this picture of his friend Ted pointing at the picture on his Facebook page. The painting is now gone.

THE ZIMMERMAN HOUSE - CHAIN OF OWNERSHIP

Address: 2425 Seventh Avenue East, Hibbing, Minnesota

1939 - Built.*
1939 - sold (probably) to EXHILDA MADDEN (and possibly T. J. MADDEN) for Price Unknown
1948 - sold to ABRAM and BEATRICE ZIMMERMAN by EXHILDA MADDEN, on July 8,1948.** (recorded June 27, 1956 for Price Unknown. )



1968 - sold to TERRY and CAROLYN MAROLT by BEATRICE ZIMMERMAN on September 16, 1968 (recorded Sept. 23, 1968) for approximately. $22,000.** (Bob's father had died on May 29, 1968; Bob's mother would move to St. Paul, Minnesota)

1990 - sold to GREGG and DONNA FRENCH by the TERRY and CAROLYN MAROLT for a reported $50,000 on August 8, 1990. (recorded Sept. 4, 1990)

2019 - sold to BILL PAGEL by GREGG and DONNA FRENCH for $320,000* on July, 1, 2019 (recorded July 22, 2019)*

*St. Louis County, MN, Property Details.
** St.Louis Country, MN documents

This land map from 1903 of the "Fairview Addition" (to Hibbing) shows the many 25-foot- wide lots that this future area of Hibbing was divided into. In 1939 the house that the Zimmerman family would later live in was build inside the red circle.

This closer look shows the part of Lots 28, 29, 30, 21, and 32 that would be the land under the Zimmerman house.

All the real estate contracts concerning the property had the paragraph in white on the upper right in them that described the land.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #11A: The Blessed Sacred Heart Church (2310 7th Avenue East)

Now, on the way to Bob's high school, two blocks away, we will now proceed along East 7th Avenue East one block north of the Zimmerman house to site #11a - The Blessed Sacrament Church (Catholic) at the corner of East 7th Avenue East and East 24th Street (2310 7th Avenue East).

This is where Bob's brother David got married in 1969 or 1970 according to Toby Thompson's book, Positively Main Street.

Here's a picture of the interior of the Blessed Sacrement Church.

(photo by Sara SImon)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #12: Hibbing High School (800 East 21st Street)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #12)

The next place on the map we will visit will be Hibbing High School.

Here's a close-up of the front.

Here's a wider view from close to when it was built in 1920.

A FEW FUN FACTS ABOUT HIBBING HIGH SCHOOL.

Here's an aerial shot of the high school. There is a large football field in the back of the school. That will later be replaced by a large building with indoor sports facilities and a large band practice area.

This is a diagram of the school in its early days. There have been additions. People described it as shaped like a capital "E" - with a huge auditorium in the middle.

The entrance steps set the stage for the grand interior.

On top if the steps is the large central corridor.

On the left and right are exhibits - including one on the left dedicated to Bob.

The middle display celebrates the Hibbing High School sports teams which are called The Bluejackets.

Go Big Blue!

The term "Bluejacket" is an old nickname for U.S. Navy sailors, referring to their blue uniforms.

In the 1920's, following World War I, many new schools named their teams after military-style mascots like The Commanders, the Patriots, or The Cadets. Hibbing chose a military mascot - the Blue Jackets - with their symbol being an anchor, a classic symbol of the navy and the seafaring life.

The name reflected discipline, teamwork, and service, qualities that the school wanted to associate with its students and athletes.

Even though Hibbing was thousands of miles from the oceans, the Iron Range economy depended on large ore boats navigating to nearby Duluth and nautical imagery was familiar in the area.

Miners outfits were also often deep blue, so the color fit the region. Also Hibbing's ore literally built the steel ships used by the navy, giving the symbol extra logic.

It also fit naturally with Hibbing's mining and iron-range character, where toughness and unity were admired traits, much like those of sailors working together aboard ship.

Here's the wall display for the school's Nobel Prize in Literature-winning graduate: Bob Dylan

Next we'll take a close-up look at the exhibits.

In the center photo, Dylan is getting the (USA) Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama on May 29, 2012.

Obama praised Dylan for his "unique voice" and his influence on American culture, saying: "There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music."

This next shelf features two of Bob's old school photographs and his first album.

The photo on the left is from Bob's 5th grade class. It was taken in the Hibbing High School building which had classes from 2nd to 12th grade and also a Junior College.

The photo on the right is from Bob's 1st grade class at the Alice School nearby. A colorized version and more can be found higher up on this webpage.

Here's a close-up of Bob's 5th grade photo. In the photo, each student seems to have some kind of homemade percussion instrument in their hand. Bob is holding a drum and a drumstick with a cloth wound around its end.

On the right part of the shelf is a proclamation from the Governor of Minnesota Mark Dayton making Saturday Dec. 10th, 2016 as "Bob Dylan Day" in honor of Bob winning the Nobel Prize in Literature that year on October 13, 2016.

Dec. 10th, 2016 was the day of the award ceremony in Stockholm. Although Bob did not attend, he had U.S. ambassador Azita Raji accept it for him.

The next shelf has two of Bob's books, plus a handwritten manuscript for a 1962 song called "Talking Folklore Center" about a store on MacDougal Street, New York City, that was a headquarters for folk musicians in the 60's.

Also on that shelf is a photo Bob atop a friend's motorcycle on Bob's driveway. You can read about the photo where we discuss Bob's house on this webpage.

In the bottom left shelf is the cover of a book about Bob's lyrics and a guitar (likely not one of Bob's which are worth thousands of dollars.)

On the top right shelf is a photo of Bob and his friends at Herzl Camp (Camp Herzl), a coed summer camp on Devil's Lake near Webster, Wisconsin that Bob went to for five years in the mid-1950's.

There's also a copy of his album Empire Burlesque as well as a photo taken at the school's 1958 junior-senior prom which Bob attended with his then girlfriend Echo Helstrom.

At the bottom right is a ticket to the prom (i.e. a "formal dance") labelled "Promenade," which is an old-fashioned word meaning "taking a stroll or going for a walk."

The next shelf showcases Dylan's various awards including a Grammy, an Oscar, a Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

There's also a copy of the album Highway 61 Revisited, an invitation to commencement exercises, and an old book listing graduates of Bob's class in high school (see below).

This is a closer look at the Bob's Class of 1959 high school commencement invitation.

And here's the graduation book listing graduating seniors - including, the second to last name on the right, Robert A. Zimmerman. (the A is for Allen).

On the shelf below this we have Bob's album Bringing It All Back Home in back of Bob's senior yearbook showing his picture (2nd from left).

Here's a better shot of the yearbook.

The school yearbook is called the Hematite. It's named after a type of iron ore - one of the main ores mined on the Mesabi Range for most of Hibbing's history.

And on the right of that shelf, there's a copy of the juvenile picture book called When Bob Met Woody: The Story of a Young Bob Dylan written by Gary Golto and illustrated by Marc Burckhardt.

The book is open to a page that shows Bob, in Hibbing, playing his guitar outside in the snow under a lamp on a street corner.

The bottom shelf has a harmonica (not sure if it's one of Bob's) and an open copy of a picture book based on the song "Blowin' In The Wind," entitled Blowin' in the Wind and written by Bob Dylan and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, 2011.

The next part of the tour of Dylan's high school goes into the Historical Room kept by the staff, just down the hall from the display booths.

The tour guide in the center of the photo was Bob Kearney who has a long association with the school and provides an abundance of interesting Bob Dylan-oriented anecdotes.

Here is some of the Dylan memorabilia in the room.

There are also large posters from past Dylan exhibits.

B. J. Rolfzen - One of Bob's English teachers

B. J. Rolfzen (Boniface J. Rolfzen) - below - was Bob's English teacher in his junior (11th grade) year at Hibbing High School in the mid-1950s. He is frequently cited as one of the few teachers who recognized and encouraged Dylan's early writing talent. (Note: some accounts say he also taught Dylan English literature in 12th grade, too. See the book Highway 61 Revisited by Sheehy and Swiss.

The English topics in Rolfzen's class are said to have included the study of European and American literature, poetry analysis, and composition.

Dylan has said that Rolfzen took his writing seriously, treated him as a writer, and helped build his confidence at a time when he was restless in Hibbing.

Rolfzen taught Hibbing High School classes for five years, then taught at Hibbing Junior College (for a while in the same building) for 25 years after that.

He lived two blocks away from Dylan's house at 808 East 24th Street with his wife Leona.

This is a picture of him from Dylan's time.

He taught teenage "Robert" Zimmerman in room 204 of the high school. He says he always called him "Robert."

In this photo from 2006 B.J. Rolfzen points to the front row - third seat from the door - where he told interviewer Natalie Goldberg in 2006, that Robert" always sat. Rolfzen's desk was almost right across from him.

Toby Thompson interviewed Rolzen for his book Positively Main Street.

Rolfzen told Thompson that Dylan "was a quiet boy, aloof. Used to sit in the front row of B. J.'s class, to the left of the desk. Never said a word. Just listened. Got good grades, B plusses ."

(screen-grab from the video Tangled Up In Bob (2006)

A quote from his English teacher B. J. ROLFZEN (from the documentary: No Direction Home)

"Robert was in my class and that was the year they had the talent show. Robert, of course, was up on stage (singing "Go, Little RIchard!") When the concert began, and it was quite surprising. I saw Robert stand there at the piano and my guess is that he was trying to destroy it. He pounded on the thing. It was the most unusual thing to observe. The principal pulled the curtain. He said to me that he didn't think that music was suitable for the audience.

The HIbbing High School Fight Song (This is just one of several fight songs. (The school teams are called the Bluejackets.)

FIGHT

On, Fight on, For Victory
Go team, win tonight!
H-I-B-B-I-N-G
We hail the Blue and White - U-Rah! Rah!
On, Fight on, For Victory.
Oh, Hear Our Battle Cry -
J-A-C-K-E-T-S
Onward for Hibbing HIgh.

(Note: the Hibbing Fight Song as well as most of the information about Fun Facts About Hibbing High School come from a 28-page pamphlet sold at the high school entitled "The Hibbing High School" with text by Dan Bergan.)

Hibbing's students came from a worldwide variety of backgrounds

In the 1920's Hibbing's mining jobs attracted workers from all over the world, causing a very diverse student body.

Back when the Hibbing High School was built in the early 1920's it could hold 1,800 local school children out of the approximately 8,000 school age children in the Mesabi Range area. This chart shows the many different ethnic and national original of those 8,000 Mesabi range area children, whose parents had come to the area from all over the world.

(Source:The HIbbing High School" pamphlet, with text by Dan Bergan.)

Bob's mother Beatty - then known as Beatrice Zimmerman - also went to Hibbing High School. She graduated in 1932.

(photo via Come Writers and Critics, the Bob Dylan Papers site)

Bob's mother Beatty's high school photo - colorized

(photo via Come Writers and Critics, the Bob Dylan Papers site)

At the end of the corridor is a blue-lit entrance to both the library and the auditorium.

The giant library consists of two rooms. The first used to be a study hall. The further room contains a 60-foot mural entitled "The Iron Industry" that came from the old high school in North Hibbing.

Exiting back from the library, you turn left from the corridor to enter the showpiece of the school: the massive Hibbing High School Auditorium.

The ornate auditorium, claimed by many to be the finest in the United States, can seat 1,805 people between the ground floor and the balcony.

It has four crystal-glass chandeliers that were manufactured in Czechoslovakia in 1924 for $4,000 each, which is the equivalent in today's money of $75,000 apiece.

The auditorium was modeled after the Capitol Theater in New York City

The Capitol Theater was a movie palace located at 1645 Broadway, just north of Times Square at Broadway and 51st Street. It was built in 1919 and had a seating capacity of 5,230. It closed in 1968 and was replaced by a huge office tower.

Next to the stage is a pipe organ with 1,949 pipes varying in size from one inch to 16 feet in height.

The fire hose cases are designed with luminous Tiffany glass.

This is the famous stage where 11th grade Bobby Zimmerman and his fellow band members of The Golden Chords once played so loud during a talent show that the school principal (Mr. Petersen) had to cut off Bob's microphone* and close the curtain.

*This story is told several ways. Another version is that Dylan's band had their own amplifiers, but that Bob miked his amplifiers with mikes from the theater sound system so the loud sound came from both the band's amplifiers, plus the stages overhead speakers. In this scenario it was the additional school amplifiers sound that the principal turned off, but the band could still be heard, though less loud.

Here's Mr. Peterson:

It was during their performance at the Feb. 6, 1958 Jacket Jamboree Talent Show, sponsored by the Hibbing Chamber-of-Commerce.

According to Down the Highway by Howard Sounes, Dylan was "bouncing up and down at the piano, Little Richard style" and even broke the right "sustain" piano pedal while playing "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay," a hit that year by Danny and the Juniors.

The piano, a 1922 Steinway Grand*, and is still there. And is still used by future Dylans.

*Most Dylan scholars say he played a 1922 Steinway Grand piano, which is still there today. Toby Thompson who interviewed Val Peterson, the Hibbing High Music teacher in 1971 for his book Positively Main Street writes that she told him was told it was a Baldwin piano.

The band consisted of Bob on piano and vocals, LeRoy Hoikkala on drums, and Monte Edwardson on guitar.

They also played the Ray Charles song "I've Got a Woman."

This may have been the song where young, infatuated Bobby Zimmerman segued into singing "I've got a girlfriend and her name is Echo" several times at the top of his lungs to an astonished Echo and friends in the audience.

Side note: In Dylan's high school yearbook his entry says that he wants "to join Little Richard." The young rocker was getting an early start.

For fun, I asked AI (Chat GBT) to illustrate the scene, saying they might have been wearing leather jackets: here is what it came up with.

Depending on the current stage set-up, on a tour of the school you might see the actual piano Dylan played at his 11th grade Jacket Jamboree performance, as seen in this striking image from photographer Nancy Berget from 2016.

Most sources describe the piano as a Steinway baby-grand piano built in 1922.

(photo: Nancy Berget)

Here is a close up of the famous foot pedals. Dylan supposedly broke the right side one - the "sustain pedal" that causes a long, echoing, room-filling sound - during his performance.

The auditorium is also supposed to have a ghost named Bill - one who sits in seat J-47.

According to "My Paranormal Podcast": "Bill was supposedly a stage manager from 1927 all the way until his death in the late 1960s. Rumors had spread that he died from either a heart attack or, seeing as he always sat in the J-47 seat which was basically "his seat" while watching the students' performances, that the stage light or chandelier had fallen on his head, resulting in his death.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #12A: Bob Dylan Nobel Prize Memorial (2132 7th Avenue East)

Outside the school, along 7th Avenue East (2132 7th Ave E), is a memorial to Dylan's winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.

The memorial is a public art tribute installed in October 2021. It was created by a volunteer group called the Hibbing Dylan Project, which spent around five years and raised roughly $100,000 for the project.

The goal is not only to honor Dylan's achievements, but also to provide a contemplative and inspiring space for for students and the community.

One side of the design features a replica of the Nobel Prize medal.

The other has a bronze chair, facing the school, flanked by a stainless steel panel etched, in swirling lines, with fragments or lines of more than 50 Bob Dylan songs.

Besides being a great place to have your picture taken, the chair is also meant for students to sit in alone to contemplate and inspire their creativity.

"The chair is for the next person to come sit in the chair and daydream . . . and see where they want to go with their life." - Larry Furlong, a childhood friend of Bob who worked with the committee to erect the memorial. (from iNewzTV/You Tube)

The memorial is set on a reddish guitar-pick shaped patio, reinforcing the musical theme.

BOB'S HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK PICTURES FOR 12th (SENIOR), 11th (JUNIOR) and 10th (SOPHOMORE) YEARS.

This was the front cover of the Senior Class Yearbook called the Hematite for 1959 - the year Bob graduated Hibbing High School.

Hematite was a kind of iron ore mined in the Hull-Rust mine north of town.

A little graphic reads "Rail Splitter" on the cover. This was in reference to the 50th anniversary of the Lincoln School in North Hibbing. The Lincoln School was the original HIbbing High School before the town moved south. Abe Lincoln was named the "rail splitter" because as a youth, his family was poor and he had to split wooden fences with an ax to help make money for his family. It became his campaign brand, symbolizing that he worked hard and was like "the common man."

Bob's photo in the Hematite - his senior year high school yearbook, 1959

The entry indicates that he was in the Latin Club in his 2nd year of high school and in the Social Studies Club in the 4th (note: he wasn't in the Social Studies group picture). It also says that his high school aspiration was "to join Little Richard."

Bob's 1959 senior yearbook picture - black and white.

Bob's 1959 12th grade senior yearbook picture - colorized.

Bob's 1958 junior year 11th grade yearbook picture (bottom row, far right)

Bob's 1958 junior year 11th grade yearbook picture - CLOSE UP

Bob's 1958 junior year 11th grade yearbook picture - COLORIZED

Bob's 1957 sophomore year 10th grade yearbook (The Hematite) picture - colorized .

Bob's 1957 sophomore year 10th grade yearbook picture.

Bob's 1957 sophomore year 10th grade yearbook picture - black and white.

Bob's 1957 sophomore year 10th grade yearbook picture - as a member of the Latin Club (front row, 2nd from right).

Bob's 1957 sophomore year 10th grade yearbook picture - as a member of the Latin Club (close-up).

Popspots Dylan Guide #13: The Hibbing Public Library (2020 5th Avenue East between 20th and 21st Streets.)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #13)

The HIbbing Public Library has a Bob Dylan exhibit in a room in the lower level that contains books, records, photos, and other Dylan memorabilia. There is no admission charge and it's open during library hours.

Here's the front entrance to the library.

Once you get inside look to your left where there's a stairway and elevator down.

Signs point the way to the Dylan room.

Here's a wide angle view of the room. There's a large collection of books in bookcase about Dylan, with biographies, 60's music history, and critical analysis of Dylan's songs.

Large photos of Bob throughout the years flank a five-foot paper-mache sculpture of him.

The troubadour himself - with his trademark harmonica holder.

HIs first albums are on display.

Some rare books are displayed among the many other books on Dylan.

One unique piece is this exhibit of two floors tiles from The Zimmerman's Hibbing home. There's also a window frame from the Zimmerman house.

AN EARLY BOOKMOBILE SERVING THE IRON RANGE

The Hibbing Public Library had one of the earliest traveling bookmobiles in the country. It is pictured below, along with the first librarian "bus lady" named Charlotte Clark.

The bookmobile, which began in 1919, was a truck holding hundreds of books that several browsers at a time could fit into. Each week the truck made 25 stops and covered an area of 160 square miles.

Part of its success was that it carried many foreign books and magazine in languages like Croatian, Italian, Finnish, Serbian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Norwegian, and Swedish that served the multi-ethnic community.

The service lasted until 1952. The first bookmobile in the US was a horse drawn affair in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1905. That later became motorized in 1912.

When you leave the library (which is pictured at right) walk to the right. That tall building before you is the back of the Androy Building, our next location.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #14: The Androy Hotel (502 East Howard Street.)

(corresponds with Hibbing Library - Bob Dylan Walk #14)

This (below) is the front of the former Androy Hotel. (now an apartment building)

The Androy is famous in Dylan lore as the place where Bob's parents threw him a huge celebration with 400 guests in the Androy Ballroom after his bar mitzvah across town at the Agudath Achim Synagogue in May of 1954.

The address of the former hotel was 502 East Howard Street between 5th Ave East and 6th Ave East. It's one of the largest buildings in HIbbing and an icon of the city.

The building is now the called The Androy Apartments and the mailing address is around the corner at 2010 5th Ave East.

The refurbished ballroom - the same one that held Dylan's bar mitzvah party - is now called "The Androy by Boomtown." It is a large event space and catering service run by the bar/restaurant across the street called "Boomtown."

This is a postcard of the hotel in its early days.

It's actually a side view. The front entrance canopy is on the left side of the postcard.

According to the Hibbing Historical Society, the hotel opened in June of 1921. It was one of the large buildings built by the Oliver Iron Mining Company as partial payment to the city when they moved the entire town of Hibbing south around 1920.

The name "Androy" is in literary terms, a "portmanteau," a combination of the first names of Andrew Doran and Roy Quigley, the first officers of the hotel.

The hotel's motto was: "The Androy - For Those Who Like the Best."

Here's an old matchbook from Ebay that show the front entrance.

This is a picture (from circa the 1930's-1940's) of the ballroom where Bob had his bar mitzvah party (in the 1950's).

They rent that same ballroom out today for parties. It looks like this when decorated.

Bob and his family used to eat Sunday dinner here also. Toby Thompson in Positively Main Street writes that Lena the night clerk told him that she remembered seeing "Bob's father bringing in Bobby and David to the Androy's restaurant for Sunday dinner - the boys dressed up and looking so handsome!"

Later, when Bob got famous, she says that Abe would come in to look through the magazines "to check to see if Bobby was being mentioned."

Here's another modern shot from a different angle on a sunny summer day.

This older illustration from the 40's shows that in addition to the large ballroom, the Androy also contained a bar called the Crystal Lounge and the Androy Coffee Shop in the rear.

Here's one picture of what the seating part of the Crystal Lounge looked like.

And here's what the bar part of the Crystal Lounge looked like.

Here's a glimpse of the Androy Coffee Shop from the 1940's.

And here's a color shot, possibly from the 1950's when Bob may have eaten here.

Here's a picture showing the location of the The Crystal Room and the Androy Coffee Shop on the 5th Avenue East side of the Androy Hotel from the early 1960's (with a Chevrolet and a Studebaker out front).

To show you just where they were located in the building, I put the picture over the same location on the present-day Androy.

This would have been the entrance to the Coffee Shop.

This is the back side of the Androy Hotel. For most of its life, it has had a huge, stately sign on the roof proclaiming the "Androy Motel" that could be best seen by travelers driving in from the east.

Declines in the ore industry caused the Androy to close in 1977. After that the Androy stood vacant for 14 years and was almost about to be demolished. But a restoration project that began in 1994 saved the building, and updated it into senior apartments and first floor commercial spaces.

The iconic "Androy Hotel" sign on the roof was repaired and relit in late 2025 after many years of darkness.

(screen capture from a YouTube video by Lem Turnberg / Lem's Super Speedway)

This sign on the front of the Androy, indicated that it was chosen to be on the National Register of Historic Places, for its importance during the growth and heyday of Hibbing and the ore mining of so much importance during the two world wars.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #14a: The Sportsman's Cafe (509 East Howard Street.)

The next stop on the PopSpots Guide to Bob Dylan's Hibbing is directly across Howard Street from the Androy. It's The Sportsmen's Cafe (now Restaurant), where Bob and his family would have eaten, and which was a favorite spot of Toby Thompson while writing Positively Main Street.

Here's the front of the Sportsmen's Restaurant (and now Taverna). The address is 509 East Howard Street.

The restaurant was smaller in Bob's day and it was then called the Sportsmen's Cafe. Here's the restaurant in the 1970's.

Toby Thompson asked Echo if she and Bob had ever "hung out" at the Sportsmen. She said, "Of course, this was one of our regular spots. We'd come in for cokes and hamburgers all the time. As a matter of fact, we used to sit in this booth . . . either here or the opposite one at the back. Just about always."

And here's another shot of the block from the 1970's. You can see the CAFE sign directly in the center of the picture.

You can also see the Elk's Club sign in the background. This second floor hall is another place where Bob supposedly played with one of his bands.

This photo shows just a portion of the Sportsmen's Cafe, at left, in the 1940's.

To the cafe's right is the Canelakes Candies and Hibbing Shoe Repair stores (both at #511), and to their right, The Riggio Brother's Tavern at #513 East Howard.

Here's what the inside of the Sportsmen's Cafe looks like today.

There ares two taxidermied fish under the front cash register of the Sportsmen's - fitting in with the cafe's name.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #14B: Zimmy's (531 East Howard Street.)

Next to the Sportsmen's Cafe is #14B on the PopSpots Guide: the 30-year former site of Zimmy's, which was a Bob Dylan-themed restaurant that was on this corner for around 30 years until it closed in 2014.

The address is 531 East Howard Street.

After ZImmy's closed, the space has been taken over by The Boomtown Brewery.

In its heyday, Zimmy's looked like this.

It had a Bob Dylan Lounge and a Bob Dylan Gift Shop and served Dylan-themed menu items like "Highway 61 pizza," "Simple Twist of Steak," and "North Country BLT's."

It was owned by two longtime Dylan fans, Linda Strobeck and Bob Hocking. Dylan fans from from all over the world visited the location when they came to Hibbing to see where Bob grew up.

This is what it currently (2025) looks like: The Boomtown Brewery.

The Zimmy's building was built in 1921 to hold trolly cars that ran through Hibbing before Greyhound Bus came along. 15 years later it became a Shell Tire and Gas Station. In 1982 it was turned into a restaurant called The Atrium. Then In 1990, the the owners decided to rename the restaurant in honor of Bob Dylan, calling it Zimmy's - a nickname for Bob (remember when Dylan sang "You Can Call Me Zimmy" in "Gotta Serve Somebody?")

At first the owners decorated it with Hibbing, not Dylan, memorabilia, but after they were open about five months, Bob's mother Beatty came in.

One of the co-owners, Linda Strobeck-Hockling, recognized her right away and said to her "You know we named this restaurant for your son, Bob. What do you think of it?"

And Bob's mom answered, "Honey, it's about time somebody did something nice for my son here in Hibbing."

And so "it gave us the freedom to say "We can embrace this"" and they began filling it up with Dylan memorabilia,

(Source: www.hibbinghistory.org walking tour audio - track 3)

The interior walls were filled with Dylan memorabilia including concert posters, guitars, photos, and t-shirts

For several years it was one of the central locations of the Dylan Days event celebrating Bob and Hibbing.

(photo via Boblinks.com)

As you enter, you should look down to see the Bob Dylan star that Zimmy's put in the cement outside - like the stars on Hollywood Boulevard.

The Dylan display at the library has some Zimmy's memorabilia on display also.

DYLAN DAYS - A former annual celebration of Dylan in Hibbing (co-founded by Zimmy's)

Dylan Days was an annual Dylan celebration held in Hibbing and organized by Linda Stroback-Hockling, former co-owner of Zimmy's restaurant and Aaron Brown.

The festival began in the early 1990s as local fans and historians organized concerts, singer-songwriter contests, art shows, talks, and tours honoring Dylan's early years on Minnesota's Iron Range.

Events typically included live music, poetry readings, film screenings, and visits to Dylan-related sites such as Hibbing High School and the Zimmerman family home.

Musicians from across the country come to perform Dylan's songs and discuss his influence on American folk and rock music.

The following is a Dylan days postcard issued by Zimmy's restaurant:

MORE DYLAN SITES OUTSIDE OF CENTRAL HIBBING

The next three sites on the PopSpots map are north of Howard Street which is basically "downtown Hibbing."

The three locations are circled on the map.

They include: #15 - The Greyhound Bus Museum, #16 - The Hull-Rust Iron Mine Viewing Platform, and #17 - the remnants of "Old" North Hibbing.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #15: The Greyhound Bus Museum (1201 Greyhound Boulevard)

This is #15 on the PopSpots Guide to HIbbing. It's located about two miles north of downtown Hibbing at 1201 Greyhound Boulevard.

In 2025 it was open 10 to 4 daily, except for Sunday and has a small entrance fee of around $7.50.

On display are over 18 large historical Greyhound busses and many photos of Hibbing history and bus history in general.

Since the train into Hibbing was mostly used for commerce, it's likely that Bob would take the Greyhound bus down to visit the Dinkytown folk clubs - or his relatives - in Minneapolis, or take the bus to Duluth to see concerts.

Here's a bus from 1948 - the year Bob was seven.

The reason so many of Bob's relatives emigrated from Europe to Hibbing was that Hibbing had become prosperous from the Iron Ore mining operations north of present-day Hibbing.

Then, around 1914, a huge ore field was discovered under the town of Hibbing itself (see the map), so the iron ore company decided to buy up the entire town of Hibbing and move all the houses and buildings down to the small company-owned area called Alice Location, several miles south.

After it was done Alice Location (sometimes just called Alice) was renamed Hibbing and Hibbing became North Hibbing..

It was during this move that an entrepreneur name Andy Anderson, later nicknamed "Bus Andy," and some pals pooled their money to start a bus service to ferry iron workers - and the people involved in moving buildings - to and from Alice and Hibbing. Thus was the origins of the Greyhound Bus service.

Picture caption below: "The first (bus) route started at Third Ave. and Center St. In Hibbing, and went to the Firehall at First Ave and College St. in Alice Location."

The large car pictured below called The "Hupmobile." It the "bus" that started the whole Greyhound Bus industry.

Hupmobile was a brand of early American automobiles built by the Hupp Motor Car company of Detroit from 1909 to 1939.

The company had been founded by brothers Robert and Louis Hupp in 1908.

In 1914 a miner named Carl Eric Wickman tried to sell Hupmobiles in Hibbing but could not find buyers.

So, he bought one of the unsold seven-passenger Hupmobile cars and instead used it to transport fellow miners between home and work - charging a small fare.

That little Hupmobile-based shuttle service was the very beginning of what would become the Greyhound Bus lines - America's biggest intercity bus company.

An early Greyhound mascot.

Popspots Dylan Guide #16: The Hull-Rust Mine View (411 McKinley Street, Hibbing)

Just about a mile north of the Greyhound Museum you will come upon signs leading to the Hull-Rust Mine View.

The name is short for the Hull-Rust-Mahoning Open Pit Iron Mine. Locals call it "the Grand Canyon of the North."

Through two World Wars and most of the 20th century the mine brought wealth and employment to Hibbing as the business of iron ore mining employed countless workers.

When you get there you will see several modern viewing platforms that overlook the Hull-Rust Mine - which is three miles long, two miles, wide, and a tenth of a mile deep.

The viewing platforms look like this.

It is the largest open pit mining operation in the USA. Established in 1895, it supplied 1/4 of all the iron ore mined in the U.S. during its peak production from World War 1 through World War 2.

Here's one of the views.

Below: An old postcard.

The ore is dug up by huge steam shovels, put on trains and taken to cities like Duluth on Lake Superior, where it it taken by massive ore boats - called "lakers" - to cities like Chicago and Cleveland where it, and other materials, are melted into molten iron and then converted to steel.

That steel is used to build cars, skyscrapers, bridges, ships, and planes among countless other goods.

This is what 100 years of ore removal looks like.

The shovels are huge - and scary looking!

And the trucks are giant, too.

In Bob's day the viewing platform looked more like this - a shot from the 1970's.

This is a picture of Bob Dylan's high school girlfriend, Echo Helstrom, who many think is the inspiration for "Girl From the North Country" sitting atop a tire at the Hull-Rust viewing are in the late 1960's.

The photo was taken by the author Toby Thompson who visited Hibbing in the late 60's and wrote a book about his experiences entitled Positively Main Street that was published in 1971. It's available on Amazon and a great read if you want to more about Bob and his relationship to Hibbing.

While there, be sure to visit the gift shop for a lot of interesting local crafts, tee-shirts, and iron ore mining objects.

Here's what the rocks containing iron ore that they are digging look like.

In the photo those are magnets that are attached to the ore, which is magnetic.

These enterprising guys in 1941 sold souvenirs of the mines to people who drive up to Hibbing to look at the iron ore fields.

Popspots Dylan Guide #17: Old North HIbbing (the area around 3rd Avenue East and 1st Avenue)

The next site on the PopSpots Dylan Guide is just down the hill from the Hull-Rust viewing platform: It's called Old North Hibbing.

Old North Hibbing is the area of the original town of HIbbing that was not turned into part of the Hull-Rust Mine.

It consists of about 4 city blocks marked out by old street signs, but there are no buildings. They were demolished or moved. The last house left in 1968. The area is used now primarily as a dog run and frisbee park.

To get to old North Hibbing, you take a left where you took a right to get to the Hull-Rust Mine viewing platform.

From above, in Google Maps, the area looks like this. It looks like all the houses were bulldozed way back when, then the streets remade over them where they used to be.

For example, here's the intersection of Third Avenue and Garfield. (which strangely does not seem to exist on the Google map above. Perhaps the road was put through later.)

Here's a close-up of the old sign (which the locals call "lanterns").

In the middle of Lincoln Street (right above the words "Lincoln St. " on the map above) there is an outdoor display of photographs of Old Hibbing, next to the front steps of a demolished building.

This plaque shows some of the typical houses in North Hibbing (just "Hibbing," back then).

MOVING HIBBING SOUTH (Version 1)

After iron ore was discovered underneath Hibbing, negotiations between the Oliver Mining Company and the village finally brought about a plan whereby the entire village would relocate to a site two miles south, near Alice (sometimes called Alice Location), and the company would develop the downtown buildings with low-interest loans that retailers could pay off over the years.

New civic structures such as Hibbing High School, the Androy Hotel, the Village Hall, and the Rood Hospital were also constructed with mining company money. In all, about almost 200 structures were moved down the First Avenue Highway, as it was called, to the new city.

Streets in Alice (later renamed Hibbing) were surveyed and laid out first, so workers knew where to position each house once it arrived.

These included a store and a couple of large hotels. Only one structure did not make it: the Sellers Hotel tumbled off some rollers and crashed to the ground, leaving, as one witness said, "an enormous pile of kindling."

The move started in 1919 and the first phase was completed in 1921. Known today as "North Hibbing," this area remained a business and residential center until the 1940s, when the mining companies bought the remaining structures. The last house was moved in 1968.

HOW HOUSES WERE MOVED

1) Rollers and Horses/Tractors: Smaller wooden houses, stores, and boarding houses were jacked up, placed on huge wooden beams, then set atop logs or rollers. Teams of horses - and later tractors, bulldozers, or trucks - would slowly drag them down the dirt streets to the new town site ("Alice," the new Hibbing)

2) Steel Rails and Winches: In some cases, crews laid temporary steel rails under the structures. A winch system would pull the building along while workers continually shifted the rails forward in leapfrog fashion.

3) Brick vs. Wood: Wooden frame buildings moved most easily. Some larger brick or stone structures (like churches or schools) were either dismantled and rebuilt, or simply abandoned in North Hibbing.

Moving Hibbing (mostly during 1919-1922) (Version 2)

The town of Hibbing was established in 1893 by the German real estate business owner and miner Frank Hibbing who discovered iron ore deposits in the surrounding hills.

By 1910, though, the northern end of the community was surrounded by the mine excavations on three sides, an it was well known that the iron ore continued under the town. The Iron company decided to move the town to get at the iron ore deposits.

In 1916 the Oliver Mining Company, operator of the mine, declared that the northern part of Hibbing, which contained many homes and businesses, had to be moved.

At that time the population of Hibbing was 20,000 people.

The town government agreed to the move and in 1918 they accepted a proposal from the company to build a new downtown for HIbbing two miles (3 Km) to the south.

188 buildings, including small family homes, two-and-three family homes, boarding houses capable of holding 20-50 workers, small businesses, and even a large Colonial hotel were moved by Hibbing's residents and workers using horses, farm tractors, and a steam shovel crawler provided by the mining company.

To move the buildings, the workers gradually placed logs underneath the structures and secured them with steel cables.

They then rolled the buildings to their new location on specially constructed wooden rails.

Some building were placed on wheels so they could be pulled by one tractors.

Over 198 steam tractors were used..

If the building was too large, they cut it into two or three pieces and moved each separately.

If it was too tall, they removed the chimney of had a worker stand on the roof with a long stick to lift up electrical lines as they passed underneath.

Moving companies charged $100 a room to move the houses.

Most home were moved to Alice but some were moved to other surrounding cities like Chisholm or Bluth.

The Oliver Mining Company also funded the construction of new buildings and services in the new townsite, such as the Androy Hotel, Hibbing City Hall, and Hibbing High School. They also built sewage, and electric lines. A central steam plant provided steam heat to many homes.

Some buildings remained in Old North Hibbing, but in 1935 they were all bought by the Mining Company and torn down. paying their owners a fraction of the value.

Today North Hibbing consists of about 6 short streets and is used mostly as a park and frisbee course. There is a small pavilion of historical photographs in the middle of the area.

Here's a store from Hibbing being moved around 1920.

Here a large tractor was used to pull the Colonial Hotel the one or two miles it had to go.

(source: The Minnesota Historical Society)

This looks like the house is about to settle into a new neighborhood in its new home.

This building didn't make the journey.

This Hibbing and Alice Transfer Company is all loaded up with a home's belongings. It looks like it's from the "Beverly Hillbillies."

Hibbing Merchants had big sales so they would not have to move all their inventory.

Alice becomes Hibbing; Hibbing becomes (Old) North Hibbing

Alice is sometimes referred to as "Alice Location." In the mining towns of the Mesabi Iron Range (Hibbing, Alice, Kelly Lake, Carson Lake, Brooklyn, etc.), a "location" meant: A small settlement or neighborhood built by a mining company for its workers.

It was not a "location" in the modern sense, but a company-built residential community - usually near a particular mine pit.

Here's a map from the Greyhound Bus Museum showing the original Hibbing (on top) and the town of Alice (at bottom) that would soon become Hibbing.

The small town of Brooklyn, is now a neighborhood inside northeast Hibbing.

Popspots Dylan Guide #18: Bob's Motorcycle Accident Site (the tracks cross 16th Avenue East between East 13th Ave and East 14th Ave.)

Now, while we are in the area north of Howard Street, were going to to go to PopSpots Map #17: the site of a motorcycle Bob once had.

It was where the railroad track crossed 16th Avenue East between East 13th and East 14th Ave in northeast Hibbing.

While a famous 1966 motorcycle accident in Woodstock, New York, is well-documented, a lesser-known railroad crossing incident from Bob Dylan's teenage years is also part of his lore. During his youth in Hibbing, Minnesota, Dylan is said to have narrowly escaped a collision with an oncoming train. According to a 2016 article in the South Bend Tribune, a teenage Dylan was on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle near the railroad crossing on 16th Avenue East in Hibbing when the incident happened.

In the story, he managed to drag his bike out of the path of an oncoming train "in the time it takes to sneeze."

Dylan took motorbike riding seriously. When he and his friends went out riding on their motorcycles, Dylan commonly said, ÒWe are on a mission.Ó

The intersection where Bob and his motorcycle had a close call with a train.

Looking down the tracks.

Popspots Dylan Guide #19: Hibbing National Guard Armory (2310 Brooklyn Drive, Hibbing)

Bob played here with his group the Golden Chords on Saturday, March1, 1958.

The show was billed as: "The Rock & Roll Hop for Teen-Agers - with your favorite 100 top records - plus with intermission entertainment by Hibbing's own Golden Chords featuring Bobby Zimmerman, Monte Edwardson, and LeRoy Hoikkala."

LeRoy Hoikkala, the drummer, told B-Dylan.com that the Golden Chords helped produce the show, including hiring police, making the tickets, and getting people to collect the ticket. at the door and later clean up the auditorium.

It was supposedly The Golden Chords first paid performance.

(What is an armory? Many American cities have armories. An armory is a building or other facility that is primarily used by the National Guard for the storage and maintenance of arms and military equipment and the training of National Guard personnel. . . . When it is empty, it is often rented out for community events.

Here's a look at the inside. In this case there was a book sale by the American Association of University Woman.

You may remember that Bob saw Buddy Holly play at an armory in Duluth and Bob thought Buddy looked right into his eyes.

Here's the poster for the "sock hop" (dance) they played at.

Popspots Dylan Guide #20: Daugherty's Funeral Home (2615 First Avenue, Hibbing)

#20 On the PopSpots Guide is Daugherty Funeral Home, 2615 First Avenue, between West 26th and West 27th Street, Hibbing.

Bob visited Daugherty's for the wake of his father, Abe Zimmerman, who had died of a heart attack on June 5, 1968 at age 56. (from Down the Highway by Howard Sounes)

Popspots Dylan Guide #21: Maple Hill Cemetery (12057 Highway 169 West, Hibbing)

A few miles south of Daugherty's Funeral Parlor is #21 on the PopSpots Map of Dylan's Hibbing, the Maple Hill Cemetery, officially known as the Hibbing Park/ Maple Hill Cemetery.

It can be found at the northeast corner of where US 169 meets Dillon Road. The address is 12057 Highway 169 West.

It is here where Matt Helstrom, the father of Echo Helstrom, Bob's high school sweetheart, was buried in 1978. (We are not sure exactly where. There are several thousand graves here.)

Matt, his wife Martha, and Echo and her sister Martha and brother Matt lived just across the highway and down the frontage road of Highway 73 about 1/10 of a mile away. That will be our next location.

Here's a closer look at the Maple Hill Cemetery, which you can drive through.

Dillon Road runs north alongside the cemetery, turns east for a block, then turns left and continues north, resulting in a sign that reads "Dillon Rd/Dillon Rd" just above the cemetery.

Dillon Road is kind of an extension of Route 73, which goes past Echo's house.

"DIllon" and "Dylan"

Some Dylan biographers claim that when teen-age Bobby Zimmerman was developing a stage name that he first referred to himself as Bob Dillon.

That could have been because his high school senior year girlfriend, Echo Helstrom, who some (including Echo) would later say was the inspiration for the song "Girl From The North Country," lived on the southern extension of Dillon Road, and Dylan would have seen the street sign every time he visited her house.

For that reason, if you are at the cemetery, you might want to take a photo of yourself next to the unusual sign for the intersection of Dillon Road and Dillion Road marked on the map above.

Echo herself remembers it differently. In Toby Thompson's 1971 book Positively Main Street she tells the author, " It was the same year, eleventh grade, that Bob came over to my house after school one day and told me he'd finally decided on his stage name. Yes, it was "Dylan" . . . after that poet, I think."

Other "Dylan" origin theories:

Dylan has said he took the name because of a popular western TV show called Gunsmoke starring a character called (Marshall) Matt Dillion. That show began in 1955 and went to 1975 - right when Bob would have been watching it.

In Chronicles, Vol 1 Bob wrote "I tried Bob Dillon, after Matt Dillon the lawman on Gunsmoke. But it looked too plain. I didn't like the look of it.". In a 1971 Interview with Rolling Stone he said, I just chose the name and changed the spelling . . . Dylan looked better."

Dylan also use the name Elston Gunnn (always with three "n's") in the late 50's. There was a detective tv show called Peter Gunn on from Sept. 22, 1958 to Sept. 18, 1961. So that's another indication that Dylan created the name Dillion first from a TV show, then changed it in Minneapolis or New York to the spelling of Dylan because it looked "better" too him, rather than directly taking the stage name "Dylan' directly from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Popspots Dylan Guide #22: Echo Helstrom's (former) family home (3527 Highway 73, Hibbing)

. . . followed by an in-depth look at Echo, who many believe was the inspiration for "The Girl from the North Country."

We are now going to the next stop - #22 - on the PopSpots Guide to Bob Dylan's Hibbing - the home of Echo Helstrom.

Echo and her family lived at 3527 Highway 73 in the southern part of Hibbing near what was then the outskirts of town.

The house is a small one-story wooden house located on a frontage road parallel to Highway 73.

To get to the Helstrom house you go west on Highway 37 (West 41st St.), then turn left and go south on Highway 73. The frontage road will off to your right.

Here's the turnoff to the frontage road.

After you turn off Highway 73, you then turn left onto the frontage road, then go down to its end in about 25 yards. That's where the house is.

One time Bob tried to teach Echo how to ride his motorcycle on the frontage road and Echo drove onto the grass and fell over with the motorcycle. She didn't try again.

Here's the frontage road from overhead on Zillow.com with the Helstrom family's house and plot of land circled. The address is 3857 Highway 73, Hibbing.

Echo lived here with her parents Matt and Martha Helstrom. Matt was a mechanic and welder. Echo had an older brother, named Matt who was 14 years older than her and a sister named Martha (her parents didn't stray far from the trail when naming their children) both of whom had moved out. The family was primarily of Finnish origin.

Here's a closer look.

The Helstrom house was 640 square feet, with 4 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a basement. Outside there was an 800 square foot garage and 4 small sheds on the property. (source: The St. Louis Country auditor.)

Several Dylan biographers have referred to the house as a "shack in the woods," but, at least at present, it seems like a well-built wooden house with nice windows.

An even closer view of the Helstrom property.

The house was on the south end of Hibbing. It was isolated and not surrounded by dozens of other similar houses like Bob's house in the central grid of HIbbing.

Echo's house was a 7-minute drive from Bob's house.

If you park your car at the end of the Highway 73 side road, you will see this sign signifying the address: 3857 Highway 73.

If you look up the long, now grass-covered driveway, you can see the old wooden garage/tool house at the back of the property.

There are four other really small sheds with roofs scattered throughout the property.

In 2025 the house was surrounded by many bushes and tree and it was hard to take a clean picture.

This picture by photographer Nancy Berget is the best on the internet. It shows the swing that Echo and Bob used to swing on, and the front steps of the house where Bob used to serenade Echo with his guitar.

Echo told Toby Thompson: "Bob would sit out front on that swing and play his guitar, or perch on some old stone steps that used to lead up to our front door. He'd sit and play, alone of with John Bucklen, and I'd be the audience. The songs he'd play weren't band songs, but quiet ones, sort of country."

Bob, in the documentary No Direction Home said this of Echo and her house:

"I can't say the girls took a liking to me or not from playing around town. The first girl that ever took a liking to me was Gloria Story. Glory Story That was her real name."

"I serenaded her underneath a ladder that went up to her window. Both these girls by the way brought out the poet in me."

IMAGES OF ECHO - Studio Portrait (probably Senior Year, 1958-1959)

IMAGES OF ECHO - Studio Portrait - COLORIZED (probably Senior Year, 1958-1959)

IMAGES OF ECHO - Senior Year High School Yearbook profile - 1959 Hematite

Center bottom. Goal: "To star in modeling"

Clubs: Future Business Leaders of America, Social Studies Club, Girls League (charity fundraising)

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1959 Yearbook portrait - Close-up

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1959 Yearbook portrait - Close-up - Colorized, with white background

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1959 High School Yearbook - Social Studies Club (front row. left)

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1959 High School Yearbook - Social Studies Club (close-up)

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1959 - Yearbook - Future Teacher's of America Club

Echo is 2ND ROW, 5TH FROM LEFT

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1959 - Yearbook - Future Teacher's of America Club -Close-Up

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1958 - Yearbook - JUNIOR YEAR PHOTO - Black-and-White

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1958 - Yearbook - JUNIOR YEAR PHOTO - Colorized

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1968 - From Toby Thompson's book "Positively Main Street" - Black and White (photo by Toby Thompson)

IMAGES OF ECHO - 1968 - From Toby Thompson's book "Positively Main Street" - Colorized (photo by Toby Thompson)

About Echo Helstrom

LIKELY "GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY"

sources: Wikipedia and her obituary in the London Times

Popspots Dylan Guide #22A: Maple Hill Park - The Tower Road entrance to the park is where Tower Road meets Lindquist Street in the south part of Hibbing

Maple Hill Park

Maple HIll park was located about 5 miles southeast of Echo's house with an entrance off Lindquist Road. Echo and Bob used to take rides up here on Bob's motorcycle alone or to meet friends.

This is what the dirt road looked like (and still does) at the top of the hill (according to Google Street Views.).

in the 1940's there was a ski jump at the top of Maple Hill.

. . . and speaking of snow, here's a huge sculpture of 1930's comedian Will Rogers made during a winter carnival in HIbbing.

Popspots Dylan Guide #23: The Hibbing Drive-in Movie Theater (11364 Minnesota Highway 37, Hibbing, MN.)

From here, we're going to drive up 73 to route 37 then go 4.3 miles east to the space now occupied by a business called the Cast Company.

Bob's Uncles, the Edelsteins, owned an outdoor movie theater here while Bob lived in Hibbing and it was a favorite hangout for Bob and his friends.

The theater was called the Hibbing Drive-In. The address was 11364 Minnesota Highway 37, Hibbing, MN.

This is a photo of the Hibbing Drive-In from Cinema Treasures, a website that has images of 61,000 old and new movie theaters all over the world.

In this photo I superimposed a side view of the outdoor theater over where it was once located along Highway 35.

In this vintage aerial shot you can see the grooves made by the wheels of cars in a circular formation facing the screen.

Popspots Dylan Guide #24: The A&W Root Beer Stand (610 West 41st Street.)

There was an A & W Root beer stand on the south end of Hibbing at 610 West 41st Street (aka Route 169).

It would have looked something like this. We haven't been able to locate a photo of it yet. This is a colorized B+W shot of another midwestern A+W root beer stand.

In Bob's era the A & W Root Beer stand about 1/4 mile from Echo Helstrom's house.

Echo told writer Toby Thompson, " We'd pull into the Hibbing root beer stand on Bob's motorcycle . . . when the weather was warm, that is . . . . He'd (Dylan) always make me buy the hot dogs - with mustard and relish.

Popspots Dylan Guide #25: Dairy Queen (615 West 41st Street.)

The A & W Root Beer stand was located across West 41st Street (aka Highway 169) from a Dairy Queen.

This would have been where it was located at 610 West 41st Street, which was the major east-west route south of Hibbing.

This is the same location as above. The only photo we could find that showed any of the A & W Root Beer stand was the old black-and-white photo on the right. In the middle right, of it you can see a sign for the A & W stand. It's just offscreen.

The sign looks very close to the substitute A & W Stand we showed you above.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #25: Dairy Queen (615 West 41st. Street, Hibbing)

This is the longtime location of The Dairy Queen at 615 West 41 St Street, Hibbing, that was across the street from the A & W Root Beer stand.

This is what the "DQ" looks like now. You can see 41st Street (aka Highway 169) on the right.

The Dairy Queen and the A+W Root Beer stand were located across the street from one other. Bob would most likely pass them every time he went to visit Echo and they would sometimes stop there together.

This is is a colorized version of what Dairy Queens used to look like in Dylan's time in Hibbing.

(Some of the letters are off because I colorized it through AI.)

PopSpots Dylan Guide #26: WMFG RADIO STATION (807 West 37th Street near 9th Avenue West, Hibbing)

This is the longtime location of Hibbing's locally-licensed radio station WMFG (AM radio - 1240 kHz), which Dylan would have listened to. It had been on the air since 1935 and in 1958 was still an NBC Radio Network affiliate (it didn't leave NBC until the early 1930's).

Toby Thompson writes in his book Positively Main Street that WMFG played mostly polka music. And that to get the Top Ten Pop Hots, Dylan would have to listened to a Duluth Station.

He also writes that young Bob would makes tapes and bring the tapes to a DJ at the station who would play them. (I'm not sure if it was Bob's music or if he was taping songs off the radio.)

In Thompson's book he also writes that he (Thompson) and Echo visited the station, and that after Thompson gave an interview, Echo sang a song she had written live on air "first calling her mother to make sure all the relatives were listening." And then the DJ followed it up by playing an entire side of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits.

Another view of the building holding Hibbing's radio stations.

The call letters of the stations.

PopSpots Dylan Guide #27: St. Louis County Courthouse (1810 12th Avenue East, Hibbing)

This is where Robert Zimmerman changed his name to Robert Dylan on August 9, 1962.

(Pictured: The St. Louis County Courthouse, Hibbing, MN)

With these three documents (below), Robert Zimmerman formerly changed his name to Robert Dylan on August 9, 1962 at the Clerk's office of the Country of St. Louis (Minnesota) District Court House which was located in Hibbing, east of the high school at 1810 East 12th Avenue.

The courthouse is usually referred to as the St. Louis County Courthouse.

The three documents below are on file at the courthouse. There was probably another document at the time because the document, on page 1, says "two witnesses proved the identity of said petitioner" (i.e. Dylan). Bill Pagel, who owns Bob's childhood home in Hibbing, along with many other pieces of Dylan memorabilia, has a copy of the page signed by Dylan's father who was a witness.

There might be legal reasons why Dylan changed his name to Robert Dylan on these documents and not Bob Dylan.

But officially he's Robert Dylan on these documents.

There's another twist to the name change.

There are many websites that say that Dylan first changed his name on August 2, 1962 - a week before - at the office of the New York City County Clerk on 60 Centre Street in Manhattan.

That is possible, except that those records can only be seen by family members, so I could not get a copy.

According to Chat GBT, even though Dylan had moved to Manhattan in 1961, he could still have considered Hibbing to be his hometown, where he would vote, etc., (like a kid away from home at college) so he went there to change his name officially.

Chat GBT says if he did also change his name at the New York City County Clerk's Office, it could have been for business reasons - for signing contracts and other documents, etc.

ADDENDUM

OTHER THINGS TO SEE IN HIBBING and Its nearby Iron Range neighbor CHISHOLM

Frank Hibbing Statue - Hibbing

To see a monument to the founder of Hibbing - Frank Hibbing - visit the the Frank Hibbing Memorial Park in Hibbing. The statue was dedicated in 1940.

The park is located on East 19th Street between 8th Ave East and 9th Ave East on the north side of the street.

Above: The statue of Frank Hibbing in Frank Hibbing Park, Hibbing, located along East 19th Street between 8th Ave. East and 9th Ave. East.

Frank Hibbing is depicted wearing knee-high boots, a hat, and carrying a backpack on his back - suggesting his work as a pioneer/miner. He also holds a pickaxe in his left hand.

The inscription on the nearby plaque reads:

"TO THE MEMORY OF / FRANK HIBBING / WHO WITH THE UNDAUNTED / COURAGE AND THE CLEAR / VISION OF A PIONEER / LAID THE FOUNDATION OF / THIS MODERN VILLAGE, /. . . IN 1893 HE DISCOVERED IRON / ORE ON THE MESABI RANGE AND / IN 1893 PLANTED THE FIRST / TOWNSITE OF HIBBING. / HE ESTABLISHED THE FIRST SAWMILL, / THE FIRST BANK, THE FIRST WATER PLANT / THE FIRST ELECTRIC LIGHT SYSTEM, / AND THE FIRST ROADS IN HIBBING. / . . . BORN IN KIRCHBOITZEN, HANOVER, GERMANY DEC.14, 1856/ DIED IN DULUTH, MINNESOTA / JULY 20, 1897."

About Frank Hibbing, founder of Hibbing.

Hibbing, Minnesota was founded in 1893 by Frank Hibbing, a 36-year-old immigrant. . . . Frank Hibbing was born in Germany as Frans Dietrich Von Ahlen in 1857, but changed his name to his mother's last name. . . . He came to the United States at the age of 18, eventually entered the timber industry. Working at a mill, he had an accident and lost his middle three fingers (probably the ones on his clenched right hand in the statue).

After working as a real estate salesman, he heard that ore had been discovered in the Mesabi Range and became a prospector. . . . He soon discovered a giant ore patch, saying "I believe there is iron ore under me, my bones feel rusty and chilly," and soon began purchasing land leases and creating the town of Hibbing.

He died in Duluth at the age of 40 of appendicitis. . . Hibbing dedicated a park in his honor in 1940 (or some say 1941) and a statue of him was placed in itsÊcenter. (source: historicalhibbing.fandom.com)

The Hibbing Speedway - Hibbing

The Hibbing Speedway (formerly the Hibbing Raceway) - located on the Historic Hibbing Fairgrounds (1799 East 23rd Street), is a legendary 3/8-mile clay oval track where, for generations - including Bob's - fans have gathered on summer nights to watch racecars - Late Models, Modifieds, and Superstocks - battle it out side-by-side under the lights.

The grandstands rise above the first turn, giving spectators sweeping views of the entire track - and the perfect angle to see every slide, roar, and photo-finish.

While there are no firm reports of teenage Bobby Zimmerman hanging out there with his friends, it would be unusual if Bob and his motorcycle-driving buddies didn't check out the races during the Hibbing summers.

(photo via Hibbing Speedway)

The Hibbing Speedway in 1956

The Iron Man Statue - Chisholm

A short drive from HIbbing, near the center of Chisholm, you might visit the Iron Man Memorial, a huge statue of an 1880's miner that honors the miners of the Iron Range. The man's statue is 35 feet tall and made of brass and copper, and it stands on a 49-foot base of steel beams and girders.

The official title of the statue is: "The Emergence of Man Through Steel." it was created in 1987 by local sculptor Jack E. Anderson.

The Minnesota Museum of Mining - Chisholm

The Minnesota Museum of Mining in Chisholm is an outdoor-focused family-friendly museum that lets visitors climb on historic iron-mining equipment - steam shovels, drills, trucks, and other machines once used on the Mesabi Range. Its grounds include reconstructed early-20th-century buildings such as a log cabin, railroad depot, and mining company office to show what life was like in the range towns.

Inside its small exhibits building, the museum displays tools, household items, photographs, and memorabilia from the region's mining era.

(photo by Jesse James)

Here's an amusingly-titled sample exhibit at the Minnesota Museum of Mining.

The Minnesota Discovery Center - Chisholm

The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm is a large museum dedicated to telling the story of the Iron Range - its geology, mining industry, immigrant communities, and everyday life.

Its exhibits include interactive mining displays, a recreated historic village, extensive archives, and seasonal trolley rides through former mining landscapes. The center blends history, science, and regional culture to give visitors a hands-on sense of how the Iron Range shaped Minnesota.

A trolley ride (in season) at the Minnesota Discovery Center.

The Mesabi Trail - a 150-mile bike trail runs across the Iron Range from Grand Rapids to Ely.

The Mesabi Trail is a multi-use recreational trail. It is a paved, long-distance route popular with cyclists, hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts that runs across the Iron Range.

There's an official Mesabi Trail access point in Hibbing (at Greyhound Boulevard near the Greyhound Bus Museum), so the trail runs through or right beside the city.

Walking, hiking, running, and inline skating are also common uses since the trail is paved.

It is great for day rides or long multi-day bike trips. Many cyclists ride large portions or the whole trail.

The Hibbing Area Tourist Center and Senior Center. (Sells some Dylan memorabilia)

The center, a small red building, is located located at 1202 East Howard Street at 12th Street East.

This is an active senior center run by volunteers, that has a small store selling items related to Hibbing. It also provides brochures of the area.

There is also a section of unique Dylan mugs, pictures and postcards related to Bob and his early life in Hibbing.

This is the senior center and store from the outside.

SOME DYLAN MENTIONS OF HIBBING AND DULUTH

FROM: "My Life in a Stolen Moment" (1962)

"HIbbing's a good ol' town
I ran away from it when I was 10, 12, 13, 15, 15+1/2, 17 an' 18
I been caught an' brought back all but once"

FROM: "Went to See the Gypsy" from the album New Morning (1970)

"And I saw the sun come shining from that little Minnesota town. From that Little Minnesota town."

From "Shelter on the Storm" (1974)

"I had a job in the Great North Woods / working as a cook for a spell" - from the song "Shelter from the Storm" by Dylan.

The Great Northwoods is a vast, forested region in the Upper Midwest of North America, encompassing large parts of northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. It is characterized by conifer and hardwood forests, numerous lakes, and streams, and is home to abundant wildlife.

The "Great North Woods" includes:
18 million acres of forest in Minnesota
17 million aces of forest in Wisconsin
20 Million acres of forest in Michigan

Note: There is also a Great North Woods in New England.

MINNESOTA NICKNAMES MAP

HIGHWAY 61

(illustration: DeadPioneer.com)

Highway 61 the legendary "blues highway" of Robert Johnson and Highway 61 Revisited fame, did not pass through Hibbing, but it came close. It started in New Orleans, then followed the course of the the Mississippi River, past Minneapolis to Duluth, but, instead of going northwest to Hibbing, it went northeast and followed along Lake Superior until it eventually went into Canada. In Bob's time, he likely took Highway 61 between Duluth and Minneapolis/St. Paul while visiting friends and relatives.. That route has been taken over by Interstate 35.

10 OTHER FAMOUS PEOPLE FROM HIBBING

1) Roger Maris - baseball player who broke Babe Ruth's single-season home run record with 61 in 1961
2) Gary Puckett- lead singer of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap ("Young Girl")
3) Kevin McHale - professional basketball player who won 3 NBA championships with the Boston Celtics

4) Rudy Perpich - former Governor of Minnesota
5) Jeno Paulucci - founder of Jeno's Pizza and Chung King Foods brands (born in nearby Aurora)
6) Vincent Buglisosi - prosecutor of serial killer Charles Manson
7) Robert Mondavi - wine entrepreneur
8) Carl Wickman - founder and longtime CEO of Greyhound Bus Lines
9) Gus Hall - former leader of the Communist Party USA and 4-time presidential candidate
10) Dick Garmaker - Four time NBA All-Star