HIBBERT MOSSE HILL AND RACHEL HANNA HILL:

These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Hibbert Mosse Hill and Rachel Hanna Hill Family Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 16,019; 16,424; 16,468.

Processing Information:

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Processed by: Richard W. Arpi, January 2007; Shelby Edwards, July 2011.

Catalog ID number: 990063148610104294

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Biographical Note: Hibbert Mosse Hill was a distinguished civil engineer who spent most of his career with the Northern States Power Company. He was an expert on the construction and safe operation of dams, locks, and power plants and consulted on numerous projects in this country and around the world including Panama, Pakistan, and Turkey. He was born on October 11, 1900 in Boston but his family soon moved to Minnesota and bought property on the shores of Crystal Bay of Lake Minnetonka, where Hill grew up and attended grade school. Hill attended Minneapolis Central High School (class of 1918) and the University of Minnesota, graduating with a degree in civil engineering in 1923. For the next ten years or so, Hill worked for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, taught engineering at the University of Minnesota, and worked at United States Engineering Office in St. Paul, and for the Northern States Power Company. In 1936 he became Superintendent of the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company, a subsidiary of Northern States Power Company. Meanwhile, Hill married Rachel Hanna on September 4, 1929 and they started a family. Daughters, Rachel Winslow Hill (April 21, 1931), Susan Hill (April 7, 1934), and Mary Margaret Hill (circa June 1940) arrived within the next dozen years.

During World War II, Hill worked for the United States Army Corps of Engineers where he worked on specifications for everything from dishwashers to rifles to airfields. He worked on the feasibility of an underwater gas pipeline between England and France (never built) and on the construction of concrete filled barges sunk along the Normandy coast to provide temporary harbors for D-Day invasion supply ships. Hill was awarded the Legion of Merit for his engineering work for the U.S. Army in 1945. After the war, Hill returned to NSP where he became chief engineer in 1951 and vice-president of engineering in 1962. Hill retired from NSP in 1965 but remained very active. He was a member of the advisory committee on reactor safety for the United States Atomic Energy Commission and was one of the three founders of the Gray Freshwater Biological Institute at Lake Minnetonka. He conducted research on several Minnesota lakes and published several articles in professional journals on a new species of algae he found. Hill was president of the University of Minnesota alumni association and a member of the Edina Park Board and the Chanhassen village council. Hibbert Mosse Hill was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota in 1956 and was awarded the title "Engineer of the Year" by the Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers in 1965. Hibbert Hill died on March 1, 1983.

Scope and Content: Hibbert Mosse Hill's papers contain family and professional papers, including his published articles and articles about him (1923-1976); his travel accounts of trips to Alaska, Panama, Turkey, Pakistan, the Grand Cayman Islands, and Uruguay; and portions of an autobiography (1980-1981). There are also items of a personal nature; his baby record book, various certificates, family genealogy, his high school yearbook, his 50th wedding anniversary scrapbook, and his last will and testament. Also included are papers and letters from his army days, his Legion of Merit citation, and information on his Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota in 1956 and his Engineer of the Year award from the Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers in 1965. Among his photographs, which document most of his life, is a group photograph of Hill with the two other founders of the Freshwater Biological Research Foundation and photographs taken while he was the official photographer of the professional wrestling circuit in Minneapolis.

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Biographical Note: Rachel Hanna Hill came from a political family. Her father, Robert C. Hanna, was the cousin of Mark Hanna, the Ohio republican boss of the 1890s. Her uncle, Louis Benjamin Hanna, served as the governor of North Dakota (1914-1917), Representative in the U.S. Congress from North Dakota, and in the state house and senate in North Dakota. Rachel Hanna was born in Minneapolis on November 11, 1907 and, like her husband, graduated from Minneapolis Central High School (class of 1925). She also attended the University of Minnesota and led, along with the senior class president, the class graduation parade in 1929 as president of the Cap and Gown Society. Rachel Hanna married Hibbert Hill in 1929 (noted above) and, in addition to raising her family, she was active in the Episcopal Church. For many years, with several friends, one of whom was blind, she held a Tuesday afternoon reading club where they read a wide range of fiction, history, religion, commentary, and drama out loud. Rachel Hanna Hill died on February 17, 1996 in Minneapolis.

Scope and Content: Includes Rachel Hanna Hill's baby book, high school yearbooks, photographs from a European trip, her last will and testament, and her memorial guest book. Also included are photographs, documentation of her college class reunions, record of books read by her Tuesday book club and an oral history she conducted with her grandson. Also of interest are diaries she maintained from 1975 to 1990, when she was in her seventies and eighties, and selections of poetry she collected and wrote.

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Biographical Note: Hibbert Winslow Hill was born in St. John, New Brunswick in 1871 and graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1893. He pursued numerous clinical research positions at Toronto General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Boston Board of Health (1898-1905), Minnesota State Board of Health and University of Minnesota, and the Institute of Public Health of the University of Western Ontario (1912). After service as medical officer of health for the city of London and in World War I, he became director of laboratories of the Vancouver General Hospital and professor of bacteriology, nursing and health at the University of British Columbia (1925-1934). He retired from active work in 1934 but continued to write articles until his death in 1947 near Hackensack, Minnesota. He married Cora Margaret Goldstone, who died in 1918.

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Mainly photographs and family scrapbooks with some files containing biographical data, letters, and news clippings.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Aquatic biology -- Minnesota.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American.

Wrestling -- Minnesota -- Photographs.

Places:

Christmas Lake (Hennepin County, Minn.).

Lotus Lake (Hennepin County, Minn.).

Minnetonka, Lake (Minn.).

Pakistan.

Panama Canal (Panama).

Turkey.

Persons:

Hill, James Johnston.

Hill, Hibbert Winston, 1871-1947.

Hill, Rachel Hanna, 1907-1996.

Hill family.

Hanna family.

Organizations:

Central High School (Minneapolis, Minn.).

Freshwater Biological Research Foundation.

Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers.

Northern States Power Company (Minnesota).

University of Minnesota.

Types of Documents:

Diaries.

Oral history.

Photographs.

Poetry.

Occupations:

Civil engineers.

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