The Way it Was in West Duluth

PDD News Sieve Jul 18, 2025 No Comments

Alan Terway (left), bartender at Mr. D’s Spirit Valley Bar and Lounge, 5622 Grand Ave., talks with retired bartender Johnny Matheson of Superior. Matheson tended bar there in the 1940s and ’50s, when it was called Teve’s West Duluth Bar and Grill. (Duluth News Tribune & Herald photo by Charles Curtis, 1985)

And now, a look back at a look back. Forty years ago today — July 18, 1985 — the Duluth News-Tribune & Herald published a special Community Herald section with several stories about West Duluth. The cover story delved into neighborhood bar nostalgia.

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History ,

Rob Adams making new art in Florida

David Beard Jul 16, 2025 No Comments

Rob Adams was most notable in Duluth for his art installation representing shipwrecks on the Great Lakes using Battleship game boards. Catch up with the former Duluthian in this radio interview about his new exhibit at Florida Mining Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida.


Art, Videos

Lighthouse Lives Sessions: Climes

PDDTV Jul 15, 2025 No Comments

Climes is a musical project led by Drew Anderson, whose songwriting merges folkish sensibility with genre-jumping guitar and lute dulcimer. In this session from Lighthouse Recording Company in West Duluth, Anderson is joined by Steve Dalager on acoustic bass, Clif Nesseth on fiddle, and
Zach Baltich on drums. The group performs three songs — “LTK,” “Hold On” and “Lullaby.”


Music, Videos

Weird clouds on July 11

Jim Richardson (aka Lake Superior Aquaman) Jul 14, 2025 No Comments

Images taken over the span of a few minutes as dark rollers split off the main cloud bank like sideways funnel clouds, conflicting air masses in turbulence. (This kind of thing scared the heck out of me when I first moved here.)

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Photos ,

Climate>Duluth: Dana R. Fisher

Liz Minette Jul 14, 2025 No Comments

Climate-Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews Dana R. Fisher, director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity and professor in the School of International Service at American University. Fisher is the author of the book Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action. The program was recorded in the Duluth Public Access Community Television studio on June 4.


Videos , ,

PDD Quiz: Get to the Point

Alison Moffat Jul 13, 2025 No Comments

Test your knowledge of various Twin Ports points with this week’s quiz!

The next PDD quiz will review July 2025 headlines; it will be published on July 27. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by July 24.

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Outdoors

Dollhouse City Lift Bridge

Jim Richardson (aka Lake Superior Aquaman) Jul 12, 2025 No Comments

Photos of the Richardson brothers Dollhouse City taken by their mommy Nell Richardson, except the last image by the Richardson brothers. Dollhouse City is a Duluth-based psychogeographical freakout representing the city and oh yeah the universe in fractal miniature. It is our joint toy collection plus the toys of my adult daughter which I never discarded, including most of the dollhouses. This three-sided collection was displayed locally at many of Sarah Heimer’s Dioramarama shows.

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Art, Photos ,

Ripped in Toronto in 2000

Slim Goodbuzz Jul 12, 2025 No Comments

[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty-five years ago the Sultan of Sot hit the road for a visit to Toronto, Canada, and composed this article for the July 12, 2000 edition of the Ripsaw newspaper.]

“Nobody helps you with your cup
No one could ever fill it up.”
—The Sadies

Prelude: Detroit Metro

It was 11:15 a.m. and I was sitting in one of the many cafes at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Toronto. Everybody else drank coffee and ate pastries. My flight had been delayed two hours. I needed whiskey.

The Price is Right was on the TV above the espresso machine. Bob Barker put his arm around a gaunt middle-aged woman while they watched a cardboard mountain climber ascend a cardboard mountain, singing:

Laaa dee doody
Laaa dee doody
Laaa dee doody dooooo …

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Random , ,

Postcard from the Boulevard Around Duluth

Paul Lundgren Jul 12, 2025 No Comments

This postcard of Skyline Parkway, from well before it was called Skyline Parkway, is dated July 12, 1905 — 120 years ago today. It is not clear what part of Skyline is featured in the image.

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History , ,

Selective Focus: Birdie Knox-Rose’s Mixed-Media Art

Jessica Morgan Jul 11, 2025 No Comments

Birdie Knox-Rose at Studio Café. (Photo by Jess Morgan)

Churning curiosity and feelings into art since a child, Birdie Knox-Rose has explored many different mediums on a path toward healing. Whether creating dolls out of several different textile materials, dioramas out of found objects or exploring encaustic painting, many of her pieces center around authenticity, finding a place in the world or speaking gently to a younger self. She shares more about her work and upcoming gallery display, below.

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Art

Historic Duluth Woman’s Club building will become B&B

Mark Nicklawske Jul 11, 2025 No Comments

The Duluth Woman’s Club, 2400 E. Superior St., was constructed in 1910 by Duluth Edison Power company founder Alexander W. Hartman. It had been owned and maintained by the Duluth Woman’s Club since 1936. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)

A Superior Street mansion that long served as a meeting place for the Duluth Woman’s Club has been sold to a Washington couple with plans to establish a bed and breakfast in the Turn-of-the-Century property.

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News and Current Affairs

PDD Shop Talk: The Usual Spiel

Paul Lundgren Jul 11, 2025 No Comments
(Enter the amount of your choice.)

Keeping Duluth’s Duluthiest website running with new content every day has been an ongoing financial challenge for 22 years, but Perfect Duluth Day is still here, still free to read and still kicking out the daily goods. Advertising revenue keeps the operation going, but donations help us do more and do it better.

That’s why we occasionally toss up a post like this one to remind everyone that donations are a big help.

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Random

Climate>Duluth: Greg Jacobs & Jon Siskel

Liz Minette Jul 11, 2025 No Comments

Climate>Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews filmmakers Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel of the Here Now Project. The program was recorded in the Duluth Public Access Community Television studio on May 21.


Videos , ,

Lake Superior International Highway opened in 1925

Paul Lundgren Jul 10, 2025 No Comments

Call this historical tidbit “Highway 61 Revisited.” On July 10, 1925 — one hundred years ago today — a celebration was held in Two Harbors to mark the completion of what was then called the Lake Superior International Highway, a section of Minnesota Trunk Highway 1.

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History , ,

Video Archive: Iron Ore from the Mesabi Mines in 1920

PDDTV Jul 09, 2025 1 Comment

This 1920 silent documentary film depicts the mining, shipping and processing of iron ore from the Mesabi Range. Scenes from Duluth begin at the ore docks at the 1:55 mark and conclude at the shipping canal at the 3-minute mark.

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History, Videos ,