Hurley is a city in and the county seat of Iron County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,558 at the 2020 census. It is located directly across the Montreal River from Ironwood, Michigan.
History
Hurley is located on the Montreal River, the border between Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The city is on U.S. Highway 2 (US 2), and is the northern terminus of US 51, and is about south of Lake Superior. Hurley had its origins in the iron mining and lumbering booms of the 1880s. The city is located, along with adjacent Ironwood, Michigan, at the center of the Gogebic Range. The economy of Hurley, together with the city of Montreal in Wisconsin, and the cities of Ironwood, Bessemer and Wakefield in Michigan, was dependent upon the extraction of iron ore from the Gogebic (a/k/a Penokee) Range during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Hurley took its name from Canadian-born M. A. Hurley, a prominent attorney of Wausau who won a lawsuit for the Northern Chief Iron Company in 1884. The compensation for winning the lawsuit was that he asked for no fee, but only requested that the town involved in the case be named after him. M.A. Hurley held stock in the Northern Chief Iron Company. The full name "Glen Hurley" was used for one year, but in 1885, the first name was dropped and the community became known as Hurley. The first Plat Map of Glen Hurley was recorded in the Ashland County Register of Deeds by C.N. Nutter, surveyor for the Northern Chief Iron Company of Wausau, in December 1884..
Hurley did not become a city until April 1918. Previously, it was the Village of Hurley as part of the Town of Vaughn, one of only three original towns when Iron County was formed in 1893. Vaughn was named for Samuel S. Vaughn, pioneer resident of Ashland, for whom the Vaughn Public Library is named. When the City of Hurley was created, the town of Vaughn was dissolved and divided among the City of Hurley, the Town of Oma (Finnish for "Our Own"), the Town of Carey, and the Town of Kimball.
Henry Meade was the first mayor of Hurley.
John Ankers opened Hurley's first saloon and served as the first clerk for the Town of Vaughn, first Justice of the Peace, and first fire chief.
In early November 1887, ten people were killed in a fire that started in a three-story theater and spread to other structures.
The Gogebic Range Directory of 1888 states: "During the past summer, Hurley was twice visited by terrible fires. The first occurred of June 28 and the second on July 9. These destroyed almost the entire business portion of the city, and at first it was thought that they would prove a crushing blow to its prosperity, but later events have proven that they were blessings in disguise. The wonderful pluck and energy of its businessmen were fully demonstrated when they at once began the erection of fine brick buildings in the place of the wooden ones destroyed. The result has been that the burned portion has been rebuilt with brick and stone, making them nearly fireproof. And Silver Street is one that a much larger city could well be proud of."
Mines
The mines that contributed to the development of the city of Hurley and employed the miners included the ones listed below.
Montreal. The Montreal River Iron Mining Company was formed in Ashland, Wisconsin, in 1882 by several businessmen, to operate on lands leased from the Wisconsin Central Railroad. Captains Nathaniel D. Moore (1847-1898) and Edward Ryan directed the early development of the mine, in Section 33, sinking several test pits in hard hematite ore during the fall of 1882. Captain John R. Wood (1844-1913) was in charge in the fall of 1885. The Montreal mine began as an underground mine in 1887. It originally consisted of eighty acres to the southwest of the village of Montreal, and by the early 20th century it covered an area of almost two square miles. It was one of the deepest iron mines in North America and had shipped over forty-one million tons of iron ore by the time it closed on 10 August 1962.
The No. 5 shaft of the Montreal mine was one of the most impressive structures in Iron County, begun in 1921, and reached a depth of over three thousand feet. The steel headframe atop it was 165 feet tall and was removed soon after the mine closed in 1962.
Ottawa. The Ottawa mine was formed in 1901 from the former Odanah mine. It began in 1886 as the Puggawaugan; new owners took over in the summer of 1886, and the name was changed to Odanah. Three shafts were sunk in the ore and the Odanah became the first mine west of Hurley to make ore shipments. The property included the former Amazon mine, near the west branch of the Montreal River, on the northwest end of the village of Gile. The Ottawa mine is credited with shipments of just over 3,889,000 tons from 1886-1927. It was later included in the Montreal mine.
Odanah. The old Odanah No. 1 shaft dated back to 1886 and was in use at least as late as 1914, reaching a depth of about 1,130 feet.
Cary. To the east of the Ottawa was the Cary mine, which was composed of several old iron mines spread across Sections 26 and 276: the Superior, Bessemer (West Cary), and Kakagon (East Cary), and the Nimikon, which later became the Windsor in 1889. The Cary mine and its constituent parts shipped over eighteen million tons of iron ore between 1886-1965. The Cary "New A Shaft" was built in the early 1940s and reached a depth of close to 3,400 feet.
Germania. This mine was inside the city limits of Hurley and was the first iron ore shipping mine on the Wisconsin side of the Gogebic Iron Range. In 1882 the Hayes brothers, Jay Orley Hayes (1857-1948) and Everis Anson Hayes (1855-1942) had mining equipment moved to Mellen, Wisconsin, and the following year they secured a mining option on the Germania location at Hurley and hauled the machinery to the site. Captains Matt Fitzsimmons (1826-1896) and John Taylor (1830-1913) directed the development in 1885. The first ore shipment was delivered by rail to the new ore dock at Ashland, Wisconsin on 16 July 1885; this ore came from an open pit on the surface. The Germania is credited with shipments of just over 470,000 tons from 1885-1912. It had a high fatality rate compared to the relatively small production and was mined according to the advice of a spiritualist, namely, the mother of the Hayes brothers, Madame Hayes. The Germania was called the Harmony in the early 20th century.
Minnewawa. Samuel P. Snider and John W. Pence were principals of the Minnewawa Iron Mining Company and began work at this location on the west bank of the Montreal River in Hurley in 1886. Ore was struck nine feet beneath the surface on the east side of the property in May of that year, and three shafts were down by June of 1887. The Minnewawa combined with the Germania when the latter reopened in 1899, and shipped ore under the Harmony, Germania, and Ashland names. Shipments that can be directly attributed to the Minnewawa total almost 19,000 tons, some shipped as late as 1915.
Boundary dispute Hurley was at the center of a boundary dispute between Michigan and Wisconsin, culminating in a United States Supreme Court case in 1926, confirming Hurley belonging to Wisconsin. The Montreal River was mapped in detail in 1841 by Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Cram of the United States Land Office Department of Topography. Cram was assigned by Congress to survey the northeast boundary between Michigan and Wisconsin. This boundary had been originally outlined by Congress in 1834 on the basis of the faulty maps of the time which incorrectly showed both the Montreal and Menominee rivers originating from the Lac Vieux Desert in Vilas County. After a detailed survey, Cram located the headwaters of the Montreal 55 miles west of Lac Vieux Desert, and recommended the boundary line be run from the center of the lake to the headwaters of the Montreal.. Michigan brought suit against Wisconsin to correct the boundary line between the two states. Michigan's claim included the City of Hurley and its valuable mineral deposits. Michigan's lawsuit, Michigan v. Wisconsin (270 U.S. 295, 1926), was dismissed by the US Supreme Court on the grounds that Wisconsin's long continued possession of the disputed property was acquiesced in by Michigan (P. 270, U.S. 301).
Prohibition Hurley was a known gangster resort haven for mobsters in the twenties and thirties. According to an article in The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Hurley was the most infamous town in Wisconsin during Prohibition. "Hurley: a notorious northern Wisconsin city with a long history of vice. Prohibition agents staged massive raids on Hurley, but each time the saloonkeepers paid their fines and went back to their usual business. On December 27, 1926, federal agents padlocked twenty-nine Hurley saloons in a single day. A 1931 raid closed forty-two saloons, resulting in the arrest of sixty people- one out of every forty Hurley residents. In an economy dependent on revenues from drinking, gambling, and prostitution, local officers looked the other way and the city continued its business, with routine harassment by enforcement officials. By 1929, federal officials were afoot in Wisconsin to assess changing conditions. Prohibition investigator Frank Buckley was most aghast at what he found during a visit to Hurley. He commented that Hurley 'has the distinction of being the worst community in the State....Gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, and dope are about the chief occupations of the place. Saloons there function with barmaids who serve the dual capacity of soda dispenser and prostitute.'"
Radar Bomb Scoring site In the early 1960s, the US Air Force established a Strategic Air Command (SAC) Radar Bomb Scoring site atop Norrie Hill in neighboring Ironwood, Michigan to track and score high altitude and treetop level simulated bomb runs by B-52s and B-47s on targets in the Hurley area. A monument is erected outside of Hurley to remember six crew members who were killed in two B-47 low level runs in 1961. The Radar Bomb Scoring site was moved to Charlevoix, Michigan in the mid-1960s.
Historic locations
The Old Iron County Courthouse (now the Iron County Historical Museum) was designed in the Richardsonian-Romanesque style by architect L.H. Ruggles.url= https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WI-01-IR2The building was completed in 1893 by contractors Rinkle and Carroll at a cost of $27,303. The original clock in the tower was installed by Chicago jeweler J.J. Neuhavre. Lightning struck the clock tower in June 1922 and set the tower ablaze. The original clock was destroyed and was replaced by an electric Seth Thomas clock at a cost of $1,348. The building served as the county courthouse until 1975. In 1977, it was sold to the Iron County Historical Society for $1. It has been listed on the National Register for Historic Places since 1977. It was considered "architecturally significant in an area where there are few comparable buildings." The building currently houses the Iron County Historical Museum, which features three floors of exhibits and a weaving room where volunteers use looms to make rag rugs.
The Iron Exchange Bank of Hurley, was the oldest bank of the Gogebic Range. It was organized on November 26, 1885. Dr. J.C. Reynolds, the bank's first president, and his brother, W. S. Reynolds, the bank's first cashier, were the prime movers in the organization of the institution. Associated with them in the organization were John E. Burton, Alvin E. Tyler, Edward Ryan, Nathaniel J. Moore, James A. Wood, and Shepherd Homans, all men prominent in the mining industry in the area in the early days.