The area was acquired by the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company (CCI) in 1902, which opened the Gwinn Mine in 1905. In 1906, the president of CCI, William Gwinn Mather, commissioned the well-known Boston landscape designer Warren H. Manning to design a residential community to support the mining operations. Mather named the community after his mother Elizabeth Lucy Gwinn. Streets were laid out and ground was broken for the first houses in 1907. Construction was primarily carried out between then and 1915. Manning emphasized Gwinn's connection to the surrounding environment by preserving many of the existing trees and planting new ones. Eventually, over 8 percent of the cost of the town's construction was allocated to outdoor improvements.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From the Library of Congress (6) and Wikipedia. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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