In 1919 the entire town of Hibbing, Minnesota was picked up and moved to a new location two miles away.
Okay, technically it didn't happen in 1919. The last building was finally moved in 1960. And technically it wasn't the entire town, either. It was only the buildings. The streets, sidewalks and trees stayed behind.
Oh, and so did the iron mine it was sitting smack on top of.
But we get ahead of ourselves.
Hibbing was established in 1893 by miners working the surrounding Mesabi Range iron ore deposits. By 1915 it had grown to over 20,000 residents and was called the "Richest Village in the World" thanks to the iron money pouring it.
However along about that time a geologic survey indicated that Hibbing just happened to be sitting right on top of the largest deposit of iron in the region. So the town residents did what any right thinking people would do - they picked up and moved off of it.
In an age before heavy industrial machinery this was no mean feat. First they raised each building off its foundations and cleared these away. Then they lowered the buildings back down onto logs they had placed underneath and hitched up horses. Sorta like Yul Brenner did in the "10 Commandments" movie.
Remarkably, this actually worked. All the buildings except one - over 200 of them, in fact - safely made the trip to the new town's location.
As for the mine under the old location...
Seems they were right in picking up and moving. The Hull-Rust mine today is the world's largest open-pit iron mine and produces 1.4 billion tons of ore a year.
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