Bob Dylan superfan and collector Bill Pagel has purchased the music icon's boyhood home in Hibbing. He also owns the Duluth house where Dylan spent his first six years.
Pagel bought the two-story, three-bedroom stucco Hibbing house, 2425 E. 7th Av., from Gregg and Donna French, the owners since 1990. The 1,600-square-foot house was built in 1939.
The house was valued at $84,000, according to Zillow.com.
Pagel plans to restore the house, painting it the original color when Bobby Zimmerman lived there from 1948 to '59 before going off to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and eventually New York and the world as Bob Dylan.
His widowed mother sold the house in 1967.
Pagel, a pharmacist by trade, has been collecting Dylan mementos and artifacts for more than 50 years. He has exhibited items in Chicago, New York and Duluth. He also runs the popular Dylan archive-oriented website, boblinks.com.
Pagel plans to convert the two Dylan homes into a museum project.
"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."
