Ripped at the Palace Bar in 2006
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the drunken compendium of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot visited the Palace Bar at 1108 Tower Ave. in Superior and composed this article for the Aug. 28, 2006 edition of the Transistor. The Palace Theater was demolished two months after the article was published. The Palace Bar, more recently known as Alyce’s Palace, surrendered its licenses to serve alcohol in June 2026.]
Years ago, when I was still cutting my beer teeth, the Phallus was my favorite place to get my drink on. Pitchers of Killian’s went for three bucks, pool was practically free, and a dollar got you five songs on the jukebox. All of this meant I could get myself half in the bag, shoot two rounds of billiards, listen to “God of Thunder” by Kiss five times in a row, and still have ten bucks of plasma money left over to spend on Limplifter strippers and Smack Ramen noodles. For a young man wandering Tower Avenue in Superior in the late 1990s, this was the stuff dreams were made of. (more…)
Postcard Greetings from Duluth in 1966
This postcard was mailed Sept. 3, 1966 — sixty years ago today. It features a scene from Skyline Parkway overlooking Downtown Duluth, with Lake Superior, the Aerial Lift Bridge, Minnesota Point and the Duluth Harbor as the focal points. (more…)
Rambunctious Deer
Duluth deer are out of control. This is what’s been going on in our yard the last few nights.
Postcard from a Government Boat at Duluth
This postcard was mailed 100 years ago today — Aug. 31, 1926. It’s not clear what the big deal was on Duluth’s waterfront that summer, but we can confidently say a bunch of people gathered around a “government boat.” (more…)
PDD Quiz: August 2026 in Review
The PDD Quiz is back! Wake up your brain and see how many of this month’s headlines you remember.
A harvest-themed quiz comes your way on Sept. 13. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at alisonlinnaemoffat @ gmail.com by Sept. 10. (more…)
Selective Focus: Madeline Island’s Fairy Gnome Village
Not to be confused with the old mysterious miniature village on private land, Madeline Island has a very-easy-to-find fairy gnome village in an area where the public is welcome. It’s located on paths connected to the Capser Trail in a natural area managed by the Madeline Island Wilderness Preserve. (more…)
Pronoya – “Paranoya”
Pronoya‘s latest music video is for the track “Paranoya” from the 2025 EP All for the Sun. The video was shot at Blacklist Brewing during the 2026 Homegrown Music Festival and was directed and edited by Cristian Pastrana of D/E Design & Studio.
Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad: Tracking the Original Line from Thomson to New Duluth, Part 2
Part two of the Minnesota Bricks series mapping the original route of the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad passes through hilltops overlooking the dalles of the St. Louis River near Oldenburg Point at Jay Cooke State Park, at times following Minnesota State Highway 210 but also passing through wooded terrain where numerous trestles once bridged the route over ravines.
Climate>Duluth: Linda and Norm Herron of Duluth Citizens Climate Commission
Climate>Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews Linda and Norm Herron of Duluth Citizens Climate Commission.
The program was recorded in the Duluth Public Access Community Television studio on Aug. 20 during Duluth Climate Week.
Duluth-area Payphone Remnants
This mid 20th-century payphone and 1996/97 directory are housed in a wooden booth inside the Wieland Block, a Downtown Duluth commercial office building. The phone doesn’t work; it’s on display as antique decor.
The premiere issue of Unsalted magazine includes an article about the quest to find Duluth’s last pay telephone. The conclusion (spoiler alert) is that there is probably not a single public phone left in Duluth that accepts coins, and the last one that did was probably the one on the main floor of the Duluth Public Library, which purportedly took in its final coins in early 2020. (more…)
Denfeld class of 1992 illustrates Minnesota accent on TikTok
@marcus200113 This video is from Duluth-Denfeld Hs in 1992. Really no breakdown needed. Listen to how the first girl says “about” and how the 2nd kid speaks generally. Those two have the thickest accents. But as you guys have pointed out, the way they pronounce their vowels makes the accent #minnesota #duluth #linguistics ♬ original sound – marcus2001
A clip from a 34-year-old Denfeld High School class video has accumulated more than 2.2 million views on TikTok in two days. TikTok user “marcus2001” posted the clip with the headline “Different U.S. accents part 141: Minnesota (Duluth).” (more…)
Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad: Tracking the Original Line from Thomson to New Duluth, Part 1
This video from Minnesota Bricks is part of a series exploring the original route of the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad along the St. Louis River. The series covers the section from the Town of Thomson to Commonwealth Avenue in New Duluth. (more…)
Any Given Day
It was Wednesday, July 15. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an alert that the air-quality index in Duluth was 1,134. Heavy wildfire smoke from northern Minnesota and Canada set a new pollution record for the state. It was nearly four times the standard “hazardous” level of 300.
Two days prior, the Duluth News Tribune published an article describing how climate change is driving the heat wave. Reporter Jimmy Lovrien wrote: “Conditions along Minnesota’s border with Ontario, Canada, where multiple wildfires are burning, saw highs top 100 degrees Monday, which is occurring at least five times more frequently than in a world without human-caused carbon pollution, Climate Central said. The rest of Northeastern Minnesota saw temperatures Monday that were two to four times as likely to occur due to climate change.”
And then on Aug. 6, Lovrien wrote another piece titled “Nearly all of Northeastern Minnesota in severe drought,” where he reported that the latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map showed about 90% of Minnesota is experiencing some level of drought, with Northeastern Minnesota and Duluth in severe drought. There was also a concern that this dry condition could go into the fall and lengthen the wildfire season. (more…)
Then and Now: Downtown Duluth from Observation Hill
Shot 60 years apart, these two photos offer a similar perspective of Downtown Duluth and the hillside as viewed from Observation Hill. The angles of the shots are far from a perfect match, so the buildings don’t all line up properly and the jagged points of Lake Superior’s shoreline get flattened out in the 2025 shot, but the images do allow for some comparisons to be drawn — the most obvious being the 18-story Essentia Health St. Mary’s Medical Center building that opened in 2023. (more…)
Postcard from the Leif Erikson Statue in 1966
The message on the back of this postcard was written on Aug. 19, 1966. The photo on the card shows the Leif Erikson statue in Duluth’s Leif Erikson Park. The statue has been in the park for 70 years, having been placed in 1956. (more…)
Video Archive: Meierhoff Building Circa 1967
This late-1960s film offers an inside look at the Meierhoff Building at 325 S. Lake Ave. in Duluth’s Canal Park. The building is presently known as the Waterfront Plaza and houses the Suites Hotel and numerous condos. It was constructed in 1889 for the Marshall-Wells Hardware Company, one of the world’s largest hardware wholesalers. Marshall-Wells was sold and closed in 1958. The building sat vacant until Marvin W. Meierhoff acquired it in 1966. (more…)
Berzerk Blawndz – “Runnin’ Into Scott”
The latest video release from Berzerk Blawndz pays tribute the Twin Ports’ own Scott Lillo, who is rather easy to run into. Each year Berzerk Blawndz release a song about someone they know; Lillo was the 2024 selection.
Postcard from Clarkson Coal and Dock Company in 1936
This postcard of the Clarkson Coal and Dock Company on Duluth’s waterfront was mailed Aug. 17, 1936 — 90 years ago today. (more…)
Duluth Album Releases in 2001
Compiled here is an incomplete list of 25-year-old Duluth music releases. The year 2001 is prime Shaky Ray Records era, and featured the first albums from Cloud Cult, The Dames, The Black-eyed Snakes and more. (more…)
Public Good or Pay Me
I was about five years old when I had my tonsils out. My mom gave me ice cream, but I still felt pain. My mom went to the public library in Gorham, New Hampshire and got me a book. It was a collection of every single Peanuts comic strip up to that point. I read page after page and my throat didn’t hurt. That’s probably why I still read every single comic strip in every edition of my Duluth News Tribune.
My dad’s career in the U.S. Forest Service took us all around the country. My parents recently told me that they tried to pick a house in each town that was near the library. We moved from Gorham to Two Harbors, Minnesota and then to two towns in Michigan: Harrisville and Cadillac. We then moved to Plymouth, New Hampshire, where my sister and I graduated from high school. In all those towns, I walked and rode my bike to the library. I became a reader and eventually, a writer. So, you can blame a tonsillectomy and public libraries for what you’re reading here.
My wife and I recently drove by the library in Two Harbors on the way back from looking at some waterfalls. Bright letters spell out “Carnegie Library” on the building. Andrew Carnegie was one of the richest Americans in history. But he gave away most of his wealth and built around 1,700 libraries all over the globe. There are about 3,000 libraries in the United States. Around half of them were built by Carnegie. (more…)
Postcard from the Municipal Zoo at Fairmount Park in 1961
This postcard featuring an image of what is now called Lake Superior Zoo was mailed Aug. 14, 1961 — 65 years ago today. (more…)
PDD Shop Talk: Rebuilding After the Rebuild
One month ago, Perfect Duluth Day completed a long overdue WordPress theme conversion. Since then, we’ve been slowly touching up elements of the website that were thrown out of whack in the process. Those tedious chores will never end, of course, because we’re striving for sweet, elusive perfection here.
For those who are interested, I’ll elaborate below. Those of you who wish to pay no attention to what’s behind the curtain can certainly feel free to skip ahead to the next post and avoid the technobabble. The gist of the story is that PDD started to fall apart, we took a long time to fix it, eventually we did, and now we want to emphasize how difficult it was. (more…)
Postcard from Fanny Bailey Olcott Girl Scout Camp in 1946
This postcard was mailed on Aug. 12, 1946. It shows a group of girls walking by the sign for Fanny Bailey Olcott Girl Scout Camp in Fayal Township, just outside Eveleth. (more…)
Duluth 2026 Primary Election Results
With 4,105 of 4,105 precincts reporting statewide, here are the Minnesota Primary Election results for races relevant to Duluth. (more…)