Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Kinney, MN

Kinney is a small Iron Range city in St. Louis County, Minnesota — the largest county by land area in the United States east of the Mississippi River.

Kinney takes its name from O. D. Kinney (Orrin Day Kinney), one of the original owners of the Merritt mining site in 1892, and the Kinney Mine opened as a shaft mine in 1902 and went on to yield more than four million tons of iron ore.

Kinney boomed with the Mesabi Range mines and peaked at about 1,200 residents in the 1920 census, when immigrant miners from dozens of nations settled around the pits in Great Scott Township.

Kinney is famous across America for 'seceding' from the United States on July 13, 1977, when Mayor Mary Anderson and the city council mailed a secession letter to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and declared the 'Republic of Kinney.'

The secession was a publicity stunt to protest red tape blocking funds for a failing water system — the council joked that foreign aid would be easier to get if Kinney declared war and surrendered immediately.

The stunt worked: in November 1978 the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board approved a $198,000 grant that repaired Kinney's water system, and the 'Republic' sold more than 1,600 novelty passports to supporters.

Mary P. Anderson, who led the secession, was the first female mayor on the Iron Range and served as Kinney's mayor from 1973 to 2002.

Kinney had just 152 residents at the 2020 census, down from 169 in 2010, when the city counted 70 households.

U.S. Highway 169, the main highway across Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range, serves the Kinney area.