Miss Dorothy Crawford’s Duluth Adventure

There’s a fun piece on the Glensheen Blog called “No Outdoor Sports Until it Warms Up to Zero.” It’s a 101-year-old letter from a Vassar College student named Dorothy Crawford, who traveled to Duluth to visit her classmate, Helen Congdon, and stayed at the Congdon mansion. She writes about the comforts of Glensheen, going to the bonspiel, going to a show at the Orpheum (now the NorShor), eating caviar sandwiches at the Hotel Spaulding, skating on the lake, etc., and concludes with a tobogganing party at Chester Bowl.

Tobogganing party which one of the men got up in our honor. We all met at a drug store below the park where the slide is and walked up from there a mile or more. The slides are at the same place as the ski jump … a little bowl on top of the hill above the city and surrounded by very steep hillsides. When I got to the top of the slide my heart almost stopped beating. I got on the toboggan, gritted my teeth, shut my eyes tight and tried to pretend that I liked it. It was like dropping from the twelfth story to the first in an elevator. Before we got through I was crazy about it.

By the way, Google has been kind enough to publish the 1911 Vassarian online, which shows Dorothy was the captain of the basketball team, and Helen Congdon was manager.