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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 Hurley (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 Hurley. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

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 east contained birth and death records; the county to the north 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.

Hurley is located in Iron County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Iron County: Gogebic (MI), Ashland, Price & Vilas.

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

  • Iron County     (The home county of Hurley)
  • Ashland County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hurley, with the one closest to Hurley listed first.
    • White City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • White City is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
    • Mellen
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Mellen is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mellen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 686 people
    • Tannery Town
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Tannery Town is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tannery Town
    • Odanah
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • High Bridge
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Glidden
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Marengo
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Vilas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hurley, with the one closest to Hurley listed first.
    • Katinka Village
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Katinka Village is located in Vilas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Katinka Village
    • Manitowish Waters
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Manitowish Waters is located in Vilas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Manitowish Waters
  • Gogebic County (MI)
  • Ontonagon County (MI)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hurley, with the one closest to Hurley listed first.
    • Lake Gogebic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Bergland
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Hurley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Hurley.

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 Hurley - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Hurley had a population of 2,267 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Hurley had a population of 1,424 people.

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

  • Ironwood
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Jessieville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Jessieville is located in Gogebic County (MI)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jessieville
  • Siemens
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Siemens is located in Gogebic County (MI)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Siemens
  • Bessemer
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Bessemer is located in Gogebic County (MI)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bessemer
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,687 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Bessemer <1>
  • Ramsay
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Ramsay is located in Gogebic County (MI)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ramsay
  • Wakefield
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
  • Thomaston
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Hartley
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Hartley is located in Gogebic County (MI)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hartley
    • Hartley has also been known as:
    • Hartleys
  • Birch
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Birch is located in Ashland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Birch
  • Sedgwick
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Sedgwick is located in Ashland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sedgwick
  • Mercer
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Mercer is located in Iron County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mercer
  • Mellen
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Mellen is located in Ashland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mellen
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 686 people
  • Continue List   (7 more) ...
    • Morse
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Morse is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morse
    • Wellington
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Wellington is located in Gogebic County (MI)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wellington
    • Odanah
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Hurley ...

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 52 newspapers that have been published in the area around Hurley.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Hurley. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Hurley and those printed in the larger area surrounding Hurley.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<4> of Hurley.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Hurley:

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 Hurley, 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Hurley) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.