Mystery Photo #44: A Handsome Home
Next to nothing is known about this photo, other than the claim it was shot in Duluth. Does this handsome home still exist? Does anyone recognize it? Who are these people and what are they doing?
Next to nothing is known about this photo, other than the claim it was shot in Duluth. Does this handsome home still exist? Does anyone recognize it? Who are these people and what are they doing?
This picture was originally posted on the Duluthians of Zenith Facebook page. So far, the Pickwick and Spalding Hotel have been eliminated. The poster figures it must be a bar in the Duluth area because it’s stamped with a Duluth photographer’s name on the back. Someone in the thread recommended posting it here because you guys know everything there is to know.
This postcard image bears the ink stamp of the Russell Photo Co. of Fond du Lac, Minn. on the back, along with a handwritten note: “The ‘Columbia’ of Duluth, Minn.” There have been numerous S.S. Columbia’s throughout the world, but this one seems likely to be the same as the one profiled on Zenith City Online, which was launched in 1885 as the Mascotte. There are numerous physical differences between the ship in the image shown there and the one shown here, but the article notes “in 1912 Duluth’s Clow & Nicholsen purchased the vessel, lengthened it by over thirty feet, and renamed it Columbia.” If they are the same SS Columbia, why do both images (presumably before and after the redesign of the ship) bear the name Columbia and neither Mascotte?
Quick internet searches indicate John Rudolph Zweifel was a Duluth-based photographer from the very late 1800s to the mid 1900s. He had a few different offices on West Superior Street and was in the Phoenix Building circa 1918-’20. His home was at 4231 McCulloch St.
Who are the round-faced darlings in the photo? Well, that’s the Hail Mary pass being thrown here for the hell of it, just to see if anyone can figure it out.
Time for another installment of Perfect Duluth Day’s ultra-thrilling photo-trivia sensation. Where in Duluth was this shot taken?
We want to see your Halloween photos at the top of this page as banners. Keep in mind the hauntingly horizontal format, it can be tricky to work with, but a treat when it works well.
Sorry, that was terrible.
Click here for complete submission guidelines, but the basics are: 1135 pixels wide by 197 pixels high, e-mail them to [email protected]. We’ll put them in rotation near the end of the month.
Earlier this year, my friend Val started posting photos her dad had taken to a Facebook album. They were obviously decades old, but they were pristine. These weren’t scans of tattered, faded, off-color prints found in a box in the basement, they were scanned from the slide film her dad shot. A couple years ago, my mother-in-law passed away, and my brother-in-law took on the job of scanning the best photos from a big chest of old pictures and sharing them with the family via Dropbox. All this makes me wonder what will happen as most or all of our family photos become electronic, not physical.
This undated postcard depicts “Alice in Wonderland,” one of more than 30 scenes from favorite fairytales at Fairyland, a roadside attraction that operated from 1948 to 1972 just west of the village of Marble, about 80 miles northwest of Duluth. Pretty much anything one might want to know about Fairyland can be found on a PDF compiled by Tim Wick, son of Melvin and Faith Wick who bought the park in 1960.
Specific location unknown. Photographer unknown. Everything unknown. Help if you can.
Time for another installment of Perfect Duluth Day’s ultra-thrilling photo-trivia sensation. Where in Duluth was this shot taken?
A collection of old Grand Marais photos. At least some of them, if not all, are believed to be shot by Milford John Humphrey.
There is no date on the above postcard image, but it appears to be 1960s-ish. The photo below is a modern-day view.
Time for another installment of Perfect Duluth Day’s ultra-thrilling photo-trivia sensation. Where in Duluth was this shot taken?
