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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Old Mesaba (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Old Mesaba. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Old Mesaba is located in Saint Louis County.

To see how the shape of Minnesota's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Saint Louis County: Aitkin, Carlton, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake & Douglas (WI).

Below are the counties that are near Old Mesaba. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Old Mesaba:

  • Saint Louis County     (The home county of Old Mesaba)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Old Mesaba, with the one closest to Old Mesaba listed first.
    • Hoyt Lakes
      (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
    • Allen
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Allen is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Allen
      • Allen has also been known as:
      • Allen Junction
    • Embarrass
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Aurora
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Aurora is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aurora
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,610 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Aurora <1>
    • Pineville
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Pineville is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pineville
    • Babbitt
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Babbitt is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Babbitt
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,471 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Babbitt <1>
    • Biwabik
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Belgrade
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • McKinley
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • McKinley is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McKinley
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 122 people
    • Soudan
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Tower Junction
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Tower Junction is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower Junction
    • Gilbert
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Gilbert is located in Saint Louis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gilbert
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,761 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Gilbert <1>
  • Lake County
    • Jordan
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Jordan is located in Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jordan

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Old Mesaba, see our County-by-County Page for Old Mesaba.

Cemeteries Near Old Mesaba ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Old Mesaba.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Old Mesaba - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Old Mesaba covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Old Mesaba, with the one closest to Old Mesaba listed first.

  • Czechoslovakian National Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Forest Hill Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Armanda Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Argo Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Embarrass Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Pike River Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Rauha Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Old Vermilion Lake Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
  • West Pike Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Vermilion Lake Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Florenton Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Gilbert Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Lake View Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Sandy Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Bassett Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

While we didn't find Old Mesaba in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Old Mesaba.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Old Mesaba, with the one closest to Old Mesaba listed first.

  • Hinsdale
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Hinsdale is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hinsdale
  • Soudan
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Tower Junction
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Tower Junction is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower Junction
  • Tower
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Tower is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tower
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 477 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Tower <1>
  • Midway
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Midway is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midway
  • Ely
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Ely is located in Saint Louis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ely
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,325 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ely <1>

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Old Mesaba. See our List of 1890's Communities around Old Mesaba.

Newspapers Published in Old Mesaba ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 46 newspapers that have been published in the area around Old Mesaba.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Old Mesaba, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Old Mesaba.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Old Mesaba:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Old Mesaba, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Old Mesaba) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.