Minnesota Now and Then: A major part of the U.S. transit system started on the Iron Range

NINA MOINI: Well, did you know that a major part of the American transit system, as we know it, got started on the Iron Range in Minnesota? The Greyhound Bus Museum in Hibbing tells the story of how the bus line began more than 110 years ago, toting miners from town to town in Northern Minnesota. Ron Dicklich has a long history of his own, capturing and telling the stories of the Greyhound bus. He's the volunteer director at the Greyhound Bus Museum and a former state senator. Ron, thanks so much for your time today.

RON DICKLICH: Well, thank you. Thanks for inviting me.

NINA MOINI: I really loved the--

RON DICKLICH: I enjoy telling the story.

NINA MOINI: Oh, wonderful. Yeah, I enjoyed learning about it, is what I was just going to say. Tell us, if you would, from the start of your experience of how you first started to learn about the history of buses on the Iron Range.

RON DICKLICH: Well, I got involved not by accident, but as a matter of fact, I was-- in 1974, I got hired by the Minnesota Historical Society to come to the Iron Range. Well, I was from here, so they just let me live here. And it was for the bicentennial to do taped oral interviews of the immigrants. A lot of the immigrants were passing away. We had a few left, but there was enough to get a good story. So I did 200 hours with the immigrants that came here--

NINA MOINI: Wow.

RON DICKLICH: --from 1905 to 1925. Well, the Hibbing Daily Tribune, a reporter called me, and he says, yeah, I heard you were at the Minnesota Historical Society, and they actually stationed you here. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, could I do a story? So he did a story about the whole thing. And then it was in the paper. It was a nice story.

And then a couple days later, I get a call from Gene Nicolelli, somebody I knew from my neighborhood. And he said, can you only do interviews of immigrants, or can you do other things? Well, Gene, what have you got in mind? I can do whatever I want. And he said, well, I've got four bus drivers that drove buses from 1916 to 1922. And I said, sign me up, Gene. Let's get in there. So we went, and we interviewed the four people.

And back then, they weren't really even buses. They were actually converted weight trucks, dump trucks that they took the boxes off and built the mahogany bodies, could seat anywhere from 12 to 16 people. Because before that, there'd just been cars. And of course, Greyhound bus doesn't come around until 1925. So that's why the real name of the museum is the Gene Nicolelli Bus Origin Center.

But from those origins, the Greyhound network grew. And I mean, I think you mentioned a little bit from the unique and the big thing about this. Because people say, why would you have a bus museum, you know? And I said, well, think about it. From a mining town in Northern Minnesota, Northeastern Minnesota, with two Swedish immigrants, started something that built a major transportation network.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. It's cool.

RON DICKLICH: It actually allowed-- it actually allowed the country to grow. As much as the wagon trains did to develop the West, the bus industry developed the country, because think about it. Through the '20s and '30s and '40s, outside of the trains-- which were kind of limited to where they could go. They only had tracks in so many places. There were no airlines. There was nothing. So you had your buses. That's how people got around. And it was affordable.

And go back when this all started. They had the Hupmobile agency. They couldn't sell a car. Well, of course, they couldn't. Guys were working 10 hours a day. They made $1.25 a day. So how many $700 cars do you think they're going to buy?

NINA MOINI: People couldn't afford it. Yeah, yeah. So--

RON DICKLICH: And so-- yeah. So the real story is that it wasn't so much the hauling miners around. Because when they started with cars, you could only haul eight miners. And there was, like, 3,000 of them. The real story was a commercial story. On the Iron Range, there was 122 what they call mine locations, where communities were built actually at the mine where people worked, so they could walk to work.

But what grew out of that is the people who lived there, those mine locations didn't have stores, for the most part. And so they had to go into Hibbing for most of their commercial needs. And of course, all industries are based on how much money you can raise. So that's where they made their money, hauling people from those locations into Hibbing, and then later, to other communities, because Hibbing was the major city. There was 16,000 people.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

RON DICKLICH: And so a lot of people came, had to come to Hibbing. So they started expanding to Nashwauk and Chisholm farther. And then pretty soon, they were down to Duluth and whatever.

NINA MOINI: OK. So what you're saying is striking. It's this idea of how mass transit really came to be and people realizing, hey, we can take a bunch of people, and we can bring them around, and for people who can't afford cars. So fast forward to today. Tell us a little bit more about the Greyhound Bus Museum there in Hibbing. What can people see there?

RON DICKLICH: Well, the museum, you actually see the history of the development from that Hupmobile. And then, when the Hupmobile-- the cars could only carry so much. They had touring cars that were they start-- they used to haul people, to have people pay to haul them around. And then I told you the story about in 1916, the [INAUDIBLE] Trucks, dump trucks, they took the boxes off, and they built the bodies.

And the interesting thing about that is those bodies were mahogany. And Andrew Anderson, they say that he was a blacksmith, but he was also a cabinetmaker. So he kind of directed that whole thing. But the thing that helped this industry explode was in 1921, a company in the United States, Fageol, F-A-E-G-O-L, they started building buses with suspension. You could fit 30 people in them. And that's when you started your over the road.

And the roads weren't that good, no matter what, no matter what you were driving. But that's where it started, you know? They started going to Minneapolis and Chicago and Wisconsin and the Dakotas. In fact, Whitman, he sold all his interest in the local company called Mesaba Transportation. And then he went to Duluth and started building the Greyhound Lines. We have a chart in the museum that shows, from the Hupmobile up to 1987, all the different pieces that were put together.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So people can really see that progression over time. We have just about a minute left, Ron. Tell us why it's so important for you to look back at the history of transportation.

RON DICKLICH: Well, as I said, that system is how America grew. It's as important to the growth of the United States as the interstates were. And I mean, how could you have gotten around? How many people had cars? I even remember in my neighborhood in the '50s, not every house had a car.

NINA MOINI: Yeah?

RON DICKLICH: So there had to be a way to get around. And they weren't that dependable. The cars weren't even that good. So here, you had a system that could take you from Hibbing to Los Angeles or Hibbing to New York and by the time the '50s rolled around. And so that's how America grew.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it's important to--

RON DICKLICH: No airplanes, no commercial. The trains are good. But once again, they were limited because they only could go certain places.

NINA MOINI: Right. So it's important that we look at the past, and so we're able to appreciate where we are now and how we got to be here. Well, Ron, thank you so much. I didn't know about this museum, and I'm really glad to learn about it. I hope more people will check it out. Thank you so much.

RON DICKLICH: All right. Thank you.

NINA MOINI: That was Ron Dicklich, the volunteer director at the Greyhound Bus Museum in Hibbing, Minnesota.