Last Place of Commerce
I miss the days when the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce headquarters was next to the Last Place on Earth. That was synergy at its finest.
The photo above is from roughly 1993 1996. Last Place hadn’t quite finished moving in. I think the two were neighbors for at least 10 years before the chamber hightailed it to First Street.
Are you sure about the date? I was here for the first time in 94-95 and the LPOE was still at Superior and 1st Ave E. I don’t think they moved for another year or two.
The photo isn’t dated, but I think that’s my Dodge Omni in the foreground, which I’m pretty sure I got rid of in the fall of 1993.
Actually, I’m starting to think that isn’t my car in the foreground. First of all, I’m not the type of person to have paperwork on my dashboard. Secondly, I think this was before Superior Street had angled parking spots. The Omni in the photo appears to be signaling a turn into the casino ramp, rather than parked for me to run out and shoot a photo.
So, I guess it would be more accurate to say this photo is from the middle 1990s.
But the real question for geeks is, based on the position of the shadow across the buildings, what time of day was the photo shot? And what building caused the shadow? Or was it a building?
It’s Godzilla! The movie was re-made and released in 1998….
The photo has a sign in the LPOE window saying they were still in their old location. A friend of mine sold the building to the LPOE guy. The story I remember hearing, is the LPOE guys paid cash for the building. My friend found that interesting. I’ll find out exactly when that was.
It does appear to predate the large sign mentioning ‘URINE.’ Definitely, the Last Place on Earth adds a distinctive touch of class to the downtown area.
Jim Carlson once told me that he’s had employees intentionally misspell signs that hang in the window, because he knows people can’t resist coming in to tell them they’re doing it wrong. And his radio ads intentionally mispronounce “swords” as “swoh-rds,” and one of the items listed is Chinese for “banana chicken.”
Here’s the Last Place on Earth in 2008.
I had a red Dodge Omni from June of 1990 to June of 1991, if that helps.
I remember when they moved to that location, the city got on their case because the storefront sign was too big.
I moved here in the summer of ’95, and the store was still in its old location.