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For those who are too young to remember and/or didn’t live around here at the time, 20 years ago today our area experienced one of the craziest blizzards in history. The News Tribune Attic has a great retrospective, and you should check it out for photos and a timeline of local events.

The Halloween Megastorm was part of, or at least coincided with, what became known as The Perfect Storm, “a nor’easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and ultimately evolved into a small hurricane late in its life cycle.”

What we experienced in Minnesota was a blizzard that lasted from October 31 – November 3, and dumped 36.9 inches of snow on Duluth. The entire city pretty much shut down for that period of time. Later that month, another blizzard cycled through the area, establishing our current record for the most snowfall in any month: a total of 50.1 inches.

Map of American English Dialects

Minnesota Pronunciation Samples — Mayor Don Ness and “miner’s wife” Mildred Opacich represent Duluth. (By “represent” I mean that they are used as examples, not as the whole of the study by any means.)

[via/via]

It’s located approximately 120 miles from Kansas City. Unsurprisingly, it’s a very small town, and there isn’t much information about it on the internet. Here’s a brief history of the town, which doesn’t give a whole lot of useful information, probably because there isn’t much useful information to give.

This map gives a pretty good idea of the town’s size. That’s the whole town. I’ve had some trouble finding the actual population of the town, but the population of Pottawatomie County is 21,604 according to the 2010 census.

So there you are. Next time you find yourself driving aimlessly through northern Kansas, stop in Duluth and snap a few pics. We’ll post them here and give our namesake an online presence.

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And may God have mercy on our souls.

“>Low – Try to Sleep (OFFICIAL VIDEO) from Sub Pop Records on Vimeo.

[Previously on PDD: Low and Uncle Jesse?]

A heads-up for frugal Duluthians, Low’s new album, C’mon, is Amazon’s MP3 Daily Deal today. You can download the whole album for only $3.99, or you can download track one, “Try to Sleep,” for absolutely free.