Bob Dylan's Hometown Hibbing: Photos Laurie Giardino

Bob Dylan's home town; Hibbing, Minnesota

Black & white photographs, August 26, 1987

My friend John and I were traveling on a baseball stadium tour when we detoured north from the Minneapolis Metrodome to visit Bob Dylan’s hometown in Hibbing, Minnesota. We spent the day walking around town talking to everyone we saw by asking them what they could tell us about Bob Dylan. That night we drove to Duluth and slept in the car planning to continue around Lake Superior, into Canada, and on to Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium.

This is my daily journal and photo record of our afternoon in Hibbing.

Dylan’s House: 2425 Seventh Avenue East. At the time Angel Marolt lived there,
who bought it from Beatrice Zimmerman in 1967. The house was for sale in 1988,
one year after these pictures were taken. (Source: Los Angeles Times; Oct 11, 1988)

Al, the Hibbing High School Drama Teacher gave us a tour of the school's auditorium. We sat in the plush seats, under eleven foot chandeliers, as he spoke of Dylan anecdotes: “I got back after I left to become famous, worked here one day, and got on the BBC. They were here asking me questions about Dylan.”

Al (continued)

“I had students come up to me and say my mother slept with Bobby Dylan. Ooh that wasn’t your mother, I would tell them to say, that was your aunt.”

“Everybody in Hibbing claims to be Echo Helstrom. If Dylan had as much action as the girls in Hibbing say he did he never would have left. He would have been bowlegged.”

“The town folk would say, ‘With all that money you think he would have learned how to sing by now.’” Al mentioned that Dylan was booed off stage in high school while performing a musical number.

After we left Al, we saw a kid on the street and asked, “What can you tell me about Bob Dylan?”

He replied, “Who?"

Then he said, "...hey you guys looking for some smoke?"

Hibbing Library
Yearbooks are kept under lock and key. The kind and patient librarian brought us, one at a time, all of Dylan's 1956-1959 yearbooks and his brother David’s 1964. Then we Xeroxed all the Bobby Zimmerman pages, his girlfriend Echo Helstrom, and his brother David's page. (Click on the pictures below to see an enlargement, use your browser's back button to return.)

The Drug Store

A woman in the drugstore told us about her friend who was the one who picked Dylan up at the airport when he came into town for his ten year high school reunion. He stayed a few hours and left. An older woman said that her son knew him and he was a creep. The other lady in the store knew Dylan’s mother who had told her, "anytime you want to come to Arizona for a visit let me know."

Abe Zimmerman’s Appliance Store was located where this bowling alley is now.

Mary’s Café

We met a woman who babysat Bob Dylan, “He was a very quiet, nice boy,” she said, “I doubt Bobby would remember I sat for him.”

The guy in the back knew his father, Abe, who shared the business with two brothers Maurice and Paul. He also told us that Abe had one leg.

No one seems to pronounce his name correctly. They say Bobby Die-lan. What's up with that? Perhaps a bit of animosity for not keeping the Zimmerman family name.

The Thrift Store
A woman in the store said her daughter, who played guitar, knew Dylan in high school. He use to come over their house. She also told us that Echo Helstrom has the words to Girl from North Country in a gold frame. There was also a young mother in the store, had nothing to say about Dylan, but was talking about insurance bills and chemo therapy for her child.

Girl From The North Country

If you're traveling in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.

If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see she has a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin' winds.

Please see if her hair hangs long
It rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me that her hair's hanging long
For that's the way I remember her best.

I'm a-wonderin' if she remembers me at all
Many times I've often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day.

So if you're travelin' in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.

LISTEN: Track 2 off the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

There I am, wearing my new cap.

The Clothing Store

The proprietor sold John underwear and talked about Hibbing's native sons. We learned that a number of very famous and successful people came out of Hibbing. Could it be some magnetic force from the iron that's mined in the area? Is there some kind of regional, geographic, polarity that makes its citizens so great? Dylan - not just any singer... a spokesman for a generation. Roger Maris the baseball player who broke Babe Ruth's record (and John’s favorite Yankee). The founder of Greyhound bus, Carl Wickman, changed the course of American travel. Jeno Paulucci the man who put a pizza in every American's freezer. Kevin McHale from the Boston Celtic's basketball team. Gary of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. The list goes on. In spite of the fact that most people of Hibbing pronounced Dylan's name wrong, they were thrilled and proud of Gary Puckett. Apparently he returned to town to give concerts in the old iron mine pit. Dylan always declined the invitation. Gary Puckett was someone they were proud of.

We were looking for things with Hibbing written on it as souvenirs. He sent us over to the Chamber of Commerce to find out more about the town’s history. He liked us, as we were leaving he said, “Wait. I have a souvenir for you.” And came back with two brown camouflage hunting caps with his store name on it.

Chamber of Commerce
Only place in town with postcards of downtown Hibbing's, Howard Street. She gave us some brochures and sent us to City Hall’s Historical Department. We talked to Pat. We walked back to the car, stopped in a Hallmark store to buy postcards of the high school. Drove by the bowling alley where Abe Zimmerman’s Appliance Store use to be. John called out to a woman on the sidewalk. A thin, pleasant looking lady, wearing a white jacket. She talked for half an hour about her sons, Dylan, jealousy, and Kevin McHale.

Hibbing Post Office
We are singing Dylan songs and mailing postcards of Howard Street and Hibbing High School anonymously to our friends with quotes from Dylan song lyrics. Then a mysterious card appears in the mail postmarked Hibbing, Minnesota.

The Hibbing Historical Society
A chubby, jolly, old lady sitting behind a desk of massive clutter. Basement floor of city hall, a small room loaded with old photos, iron pit stories, and immigrant history. She told us that Dylan absolutely forbid any publicity in Hibbing. She gave us wooden nickels and iron taconite pellets from the mine and told us not to put them in our sling shots to kill animals. Her theory about Hibbing’s famous people ties in with the American Dream. A town of immigrants who didn’t have the means to make their dreams work, looked to their children to succeed.

Notable natives and residents of Hibbing: Source Aug2010: Wikipedia

• Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth), musician-singer-songwriter-artist-Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Pulitzer Prize winner
• Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson
• Jeno Paulucci, founder of Jeno's Pizza and Chun King Foods brands
• Carl Wickman, founder and longtime CEO of Greyhound Lines
• Rudy Perpich, Minnesota governor, former town dentist
• Roger Maris, professional baseball player
• Joe Bretto, professional hockey player, Chicago Black Hawks
• Dick Garmaker, professional basketball player
• Kevin McHale, professional basketball player, 4 NBA titles with the Boston Celtics, former Minnesota Timberwolves Vice President
• Joe Micheletti, professional hockey player, television Olympics & NHL hockey analyst in NYC.
• Pat Micheletti, professional hockey player.
• Mickey Krampotich, professional hockey player, NCAA Divsion I hockey Champion title with North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
• Mike Peluso, professional hockey player grew up in nearby Greenway, Stanley Cup title with New Jersey Devils
• Pete Wohlers, professional stock car racer, 2 WISSOTA national points titles with over 100 feature race wins, General Manager of Iron Range, US automobile dealerships.
• Gary Puckett, musician
• Steve Deger, nonfiction author
• Marie Myung-Ok Lee, novelist and essayist
• Bethany McLean, co-author of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
• Bruce Carlson, United States Air Force general, director of the National Reconnaissance Office
• Jeff Halper, professor of anthropology, author, lecturer, political activist and co-founder of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
• Gus Hall, former leader of the Communist Party USA and four-time U.S. presidential candidate
• Robert Mondavi, American wine entrepreneur
• Jay Thomas, Radio talk show host on WDAY (AM)

Click to enlarge Hibbing street map.

To Hibbing Enthusiasts: The Hibbing Library now has an online Dylan Collection complete with an audio walking tour if anyone's interested click here...HIBBING LIBRARY DYLAN COLLECTION

Thanks for your visit. To see a photographic memoir of my hometown, click here

Totowa Book of the Dead

Facts About the Author