Hinckley, MN

At the junction of Interstate 35 and Minnesota 48, Hinckley is a Pine County city whose name reaches back to the Ojibwe Gaa-zhiigwanaabikokaag, the place abundant with grindstones. The Grindstone River runs through the story and the city, and portions of the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation lie within or beside Hinckley. Timber, railroads, and the Great Hinckley Fire shaped the place in a single generation: on September 1, 1894, a firestorm killed over 400 people and changed the town's course.

The Hinckley Fire Museum keeps that history close, telling the story of the fire, its survivors, and the people who came to harvest timber and build the rail connections. Hinckley-Finlayson Public Schools serve the area, and Grand Casino Hinckley, opened by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in 1992, brings a tribal hospitality and entertainment operation to the highway corridor. The city therefore has several distinct working and cultural threads: Ojibwe presence, a casino economy, school campuses, and a museum devoted to the disaster that still defines its name.