US Steel buying up homes, last business in Kinney

KINNEY — When this tiny Iron Range town needed to update its water system, it seceded from the United States in 1977.

The Republic of Kinney, a 12-square-block “nation” with a population of about 400 at the time, was born. Its tongue-in-cheek secession worked; the stunt drew significant attention and the city received the necessary infrastructure funding.

Kinney’s independent spirit endured, even as its population dropped. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, just 152 people lived there.

But the town located between Mountain Iron and Buhl and within a half-mile of the edge of U.S. Steel’s Minntac mine pit faces an uncertain future.

U.S. Steel bought 11 of the 14 Kinney properties sold in 2023, representing a large swath of the north half of town. Most properties were homes, but the company also bought Liquid Larry’s bar — the last business in a town that once boasted two grocery stores, several bars, a cafe, auto dealership, a church and a school — and then tore it down in April.

Before the company started buying homes, Kinney was a patchwork of vacant lots, old houses and mobile homes.

While U.S. Steel has also razed several of the homes it bought, many are being leased back to their former owners under the condition the company gives them a six-month notice before they need to leave.

Cassie Rivet swatted mosquitoes away as she pushed her sons, Alija, 4, and AJ, 6, in a tent swing hanging from a tree branch in her yard, which is now bordered on two sides by U.S. Steel property.

That includes every parcel directly across the street from her and an empty lot across the alley where Liquid Larry’s once stood.

Rivet, 37, spent her youth moving countless times throughout the Twin Cities, but she, her husband, Tony, and their four kids have called Kinney home for 11 years.

“We love this little town,” Rivet said.

If approached by U.S. Steel, Rivet said she’d hold out on selling, at least until her children complete high school. Her youngest will enter kindergarten in the fall.

Raising a young son with autism, Rivet said consistency, routine and a comfortable living space are vital to his well-being, and she doesn’t want her family to move as often as she did growing up.

Plus, Rivet said everyone in Kinney looks out for each other.

After her daughter, Carli, 13, took AJ and Alija to play on the new playground equipment in the park just a half-block away, two neighbor kids stopped by looking for their dog. The younger boy, on a bicycle, joined Rivet’s children at the park while Rivet and the older girl, on a scooter, set out for a lap around town looking for the dog.

Longtime residents said that as long as they’ve lived in town, they’ve lived under the assumption that U.S. Steel would one day mine the taconite beneath them.

“It’s kind of heartbreaking, to be honest,” said Billy Wiltse, who moved to Kinney when he was 2 years old in 1966 and lived there until 2022, when he moved to Ely. He still owns property in Kinney.

“From the time I was old enough to understand what anybody was talking about,” Wiltse said, “I had been told that ‘Kinney won’t be here in five years; Kinney won’t be here in five years.’ It’s kind of been a threat all my life. Minntac was going to come in and buy it up, and I didn’t figure that I’d ever see it in my lifetime.”

Still, Wiltse is open to selling his properties once he can build a new garage for his vehicles and tools, which are still stored in Kinney.

U.S. Steel would not share details on what’s planned or its timeline.

“U.S. Steel regularly purchases property for potential future use,” U.S. Steel spokesperson Amanda Malkowski said in a statement to the News Tribune. “No new permits for facilities have been filed for these areas, and any announcements about new facilities or expansion will come from the company. We value the communities where we live and work, and we consistently communicate with them.”

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources spokesperson Erik Evans said the agency is aware that U.S. Steel bought Kinney properties last year, but that “it’s unclear what the company will do with these purchased properties.”

Evans noted Minntac has been expanding west.

“The Kinney area is considered a low-stripping, high-value taconite resource with significant mineral ownership by U.S. Steel, state of Minnesota and other private entities,” Evans said.

There is one hurdle that would potentially complicate a mine pit expansion all the way into Kinney: Rival steelmaking and iron mining company Cleveland-Cliffs holds the rights to a thin strip of state mineral leases between Kinney and the Minntac mine pit.

But besides mining the ground beneath the town itself, buying additional land could also be used as a necessary buffer around the mine.

U.S. Steel has also bought nearly every property in the Parkville neighborhood of Mountain Iron, near Minntac’s east pit, during the last 15-20 years. Today, like the north side of Kinney, the Parkville neighborhood is a mix of homes still occupied by previous owners renting back from U.S. Steel and empty lots with concrete slabs where garages once stood. Several blocks north of Parkville Street are now gated by U.S. Steel, clear of any homes and even trees.

“Similar to previous purchases in the Parkville area, and prior to environmental review and permitting,” Evans said, “the company sought to purchase property and homes they considered to be either in the mining area or buffer areas of their future expansion.”

Iron Range towns are not necessarily permanent, and residents understand their region’s livelihood may rely on the ore beneath their communities.

Hibbing famously moved 2 miles south from 1919-1921, when ore was found beneath its original location.

In 2019, as Minorca Mine, then owned by ArcelorMittal but now owned by Cleveland-Cliffs, moved even closer to the town of McKinley on the eastern Iron Range, residents voted informally 28-10 in favor of selling to the company versus staying in the tiny town.

The late Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Commissioner Mark Phillips said in 2019 he expected McKinley to be mined out one day, adding there were multiple communities along the range that companies were likely eyeing.

Like Wiltse, Scott Ellis, 69, has spent most of his life in Kinney — the last 50 years in his home on the south side of Main Street. His dad moved the family to the area to build Minntac, and then Ellis took a job there right out of high school, working in maintenance for 36 years.

Ellis, a widower with grown children, said his home has served its purpose, and he’d sell to U.S. Steel if they began buying properties on this side of town. He’s been looking to downsize and move somewhere more accessible.

“I’ll miss my garages,” he said.

Still, he and other residents are left wondering what U.S. Steel is planning with all the purchases.

“All of it’s unknown. Are they going to come for us across Main Street? Are they going to?” Ellis said. “Nobody knows, and U.S. Steel doesn’t say anything.”

Dale Wiltse, a Kinney councilperson and brother to Billy Wiltse, sold his home to U.S. Steel last year and is renting it back.

Dale said he couldn’t disclose details of the sale or rental agreement.

According to St. Louis County property records, U.S. Steel bought his home for $300,000 in November, well above the estimated market value of $185,000.

Dale said a company representative didn’t provide him with much of a timeline for staying.

“It could be five years, it could be seven, it could be 20. … He said, ‘If I show up and tell you, you got six months, well I’m sorry, but that’s all you've got is six months to be out,” Wiltse said.

“I said, ‘That’s not a problem,’” Dale said.

After all, it’s been a long time coming.

“When I moved in, they said Minntac was going to buy this town out,“ Dale said. “Nobody believed them.”

Still, it takes some adjusting.

“It’s surreal,” Rivet said. “There’s times where you drive into town like, ‘It’s not even going to be here one day.’”