Minnesota reels: Twin Cities, Iron Range and farm country

A long way from the plants

The research behind this site found no wire or cable plant in Minnesota on the makers' own pages. The nearest are Southwire's plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, the plants in Indiana and the Prysmian plants further south. Everything installed here, from feeder cable in Minneapolis to fiber in the Red River Valley, rode in on a long-haul truck.

Sending reels back east costs the same long freight again, and many reels qualify for no return program in any case. So empties tend to stay. That's good news for a Minnesota buyer: the reels you need may already be in a yard an hour away, at a fraction of the freight a new reel would carry.

Utilities across the state

EIA's 2024 table of Minnesota's top five retailers is Northern States Power, which operates as Xcel Energy, followed by ALLETE (Minnesota Power), Otter Tail Power, Connexus Energy and Dakota Electric Association. Xcel serves the Twin Cities and much of the south and center. Minnesota Power serves Duluth, the Iron Range and much of the northeast. Otter Tail Power serves the west, from Fergus Falls up the Red River Valley. Connexus and Dakota Electric are two big co-ops in the north and south Twin Cities suburbs.

Each produces reels differently. Metro distribution and suburban growth leave mid-size and large nailed reels in quantity. Mining and paper mill service on the Range leaves heavy industrial reels. Western rural lines leave long-run reels spread across many small yards.

Spring load restrictions and deep winter

Minnesota sets spring load restrictions on many roads while the frost comes out of the ground, and in the north those can run well into spring. A loaded semi may not be allowed on a posted county or township road until they lift. Winter, for its part, brings ground frozen hard enough to carry heavy trucks on many roads, but also snow, deep cold and short days.

For a reel seller that adds up to a simple rule: if your yard is on a minor road, tell us, and we'll time the pickup for when a truck is allowed and able to get in. We'd rather wait a few weeks than send a truck that has to turn back.

Duluth, the Range and the north

Duluth sits at the head of Lake Superior where I-35 ends. North and west of it, the Iron Range runs through Hibbing, Virginia and Eveleth, with taconite mines and processing plants that use heavy power cable. Minnesota Power's lines and the mines' own systems leave large, heavy reels in industrial yards.

Those reels can be good stock, built strong and often lightly used, but they need big forklifts or cranes to load and buyers who use that size. A Range lot often goes best as a full trailer down I-35 toward the Twin Cities, or across to Superior, Wisconsin.

Freight routes in and out

I-94 runs from the Wisconsin line through St. Paul and Minneapolis, then northwest past St. Cloud and Alexandria to Fargo-Moorhead. I-35 runs from Duluth south through the Twin Cities, where it splits into I-35E and I-35W, to Owatonna, Albert Lea and Iowa. I-90 crosses the far south from La Crescent through Albert Lea and Worthington to South Dakota.

Most reel lots are near one of those, but much of the north and west is reached by two-lane highways. Lots in the Red River Valley often pair with Fargo, North Dakota. Lots in the southwest pair with Sioux Falls. Southeast lots near Rochester and Winona are close to La Crosse, Wisconsin and northern Iowa.

• Twin Cities metro: Minneapolis, St. Paul and the suburbs, the bulk of the reels
• Central: St. Cloud, Brainerd, on I-94 and US-10
• Northeast and the Range: Duluth, Hibbing, Virginia
• Northwest and the Red River Valley: Moorhead, Bemidji, Crookston
• Southwest: Marshall, Worthington, Willmar
• Southeast: Rochester, Mankato, Winona, Albert Lea

BEAD in Minnesota

NTIA's June 2023 BEAD table allocated Minnesota $651,839,368.20. The unserved homes are spread through the northern lakes and forests and across the prairie farm country of the west and south. In the north, fiber goes on poles through forest and across wetland; on the prairie, it is mostly plowed along section roads.

Long distances between homes use a lot of cable and empty a lot of reels. Crews also want empties of the right drum diameter to take back cut fiber. With the plants so far away, a reel reused inside the state saves both the seller and the buyer a long haul.

Who buys reels in Minnesota

In the Twin Cities, buyers are mostly electrical contractors cutting building wire to length, line contractors storing pulled-back URD, and data center and industrial contractors who need matched mid-size reels. Outstate, they are fiber crews, co-op line crews and farms. On the Range, they are often the mines and their contractors, looking for heavy reels in sizes that are hard to find.

Tell us the cable and the footage per reel and we can name the size that fits. We look first for reels within Minnesota, then in western Wisconsin, northern Iowa and the Dakotas, because in a state this far from the plants, a short haul is most of the saving.

Quoting a Minnesota lot

1. 01

   Tell us where

   Town and the road to the yard, including whether it is posted in spring.

2. 02

   Sizes and counts

   Flange x traverse x drum for each size, and how many.

3. 03

   Condition

   Photos of the pile, a reel stencil per size and any frost-cracked flanges.

4. 04

   Loading

   Forklift or loader, fork length for large reels, and whether the yard is plowed.