Well, since I have some history with this, I suppose I'll wade in (though Paul already covered some of it). Duluth Trading Company was the name given to the Portable Products mail order catalog back in 1992 or 1993 by the major partner in the Business, Bob Fierek. Bob, his brother Dave (they're from Morgan Park) and another partner started the company to sell the "Bucket Boss," a nylon sleeve with pockets that fit over a 5-gallon bucket to hold tools for tradesmen, making a kind of inexpensive tool box. The original catalog was aptly named the Portable Products Catalog, but a name change was forced on Fierek by vendors early on. He chose "Duluth Trading Company" with the intention of re-locating in Duluth.

Early on there were plans to move the mail order catalog part of the business to Duluth, to a barge moored in the Duluth Timber slip, but the sale to Fiskars pre-empted that. Bob would love to see Duluth Trading Company locate back to Duluth.

So the name has actual connection to our fine city. My own currently modest involvement began with their first catalog, which I illustrated and designed in 1991. I worked on most of the other catalogs through the sale of the business to Fiskars up until Steve Schlecht bought the catalog part of the business in 2001. He already had another catalog business with an in-house design department so I lost the design part and mostly just provided illustration after that. I still draw a bunch of the product illustrations and a few of the covers.

Interestingly, Steve has wanted to open a store in Duluth for years. I suspect if he could find a reasonable location, he'd be here pretty quickly.
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