Bob Dylan Super-Fan Purchases Singer’s Childhood Home in Hibbing, Minnesota

Bob Dylan super-fan Bill Pagel has purchased the ultimate rock collectible: the Hibbing, Minnesota house where Dylan lived from 1948 to 1959. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he bought the 1,600 square foot home from Gregg and Donna French, who have lived there since 1990. It was valued at $84,000 by Zillow.

Pagel plans on restoring the home to its appearance during Dylan’s childhood in the 1950s. “I’m trying to locate another collector who purchased many pieces of the original furniture, including Bob Dylan’s bedroom set, from the Hibbing home in 1988,” Pagel said in a statement. “I would appreciate hearing from anyone who may have a lead in locating this person.”

Pagel, a pharmacist in his late seventies, has run the Bob Dylan essential fan website boblinks.com since 1995. Among many other things, it houses Bob Dylan’s setlist from every night of the Never Ending Tour. They often go up minutes after a show ends, regardless of where they take place around the globe, making it an invaluable resource for Dylan fans.

His Dylan fandom goes back well over 50 years. “I first became aware of Bob Dylan in the fall of 1961 while in college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison,” Pagel told Artful Living in 2017. “Some of my friends were from New York City and had seen him perform — this was before his first album came out. One of them showed me a New York Times article written by Robert Shelton giving Bob a very favorable review after seeing him perform at Gerdes Folk City in Greenwich Village. Several months later, I purchased his first album when it was released in early 1962.”

In 2001, he purchased Dylan’s first childhood home –– a duplex in Duluth Minnesota –– for $82,000 on Ebay. It was the centerpiece of his Dylan collection, at least until his recent purchase of the Hibbing home. He hopes to turn both homes into Dylan museums.

via:: Rolling Stone