Postcards from Chester Park
“Chester Park is popular both in summer and winter,” according to old postcard propaganda. “In it is located one of America’s highest ski jumps and also Chester Creek, one of several flowing thru the city in which trout may be caught. Duluth is the only city in the United States where trout fishing is possible within city limits.”
Well, we know the famous ski jumps came down in 2014, but there seems to be another fact in there worth examining. Was Duluth at one time really the only city with trout fishing? Prove it or debunk it, dear reader.
In the meantime, here are more snappy postcards …
Oh my heavens, no, that would be a bold claim. Lotsa places you can snag a troutski in city limits.
Niff, what you are saying is clearly the case today. What I’m wondering is whether, going back nearly a century to when the postcard was published, is it possible that very few or zero cities other than Duluth were located on trout streams? It seems kind of crazy. Postcards were known to exaggerate, but maybe this one is making a joke if the claim is that ridiculous.
Here is the card, published by Arrowhead Printing Company of Duluth. It was never mailed, so it’s not dated. Big Chester was built in 1924, so the postcard is more recent than that.
Still, I can think of several western cities where a cut or bow can and probably could, back in the day, have been hooked and cooked quite easily…I reiterate, a BOLD claim!
The postcards are so cool. Has anyone reissued historic Duluth postcards? I’d buy a set.
There is a book featuring a lot of old postcards: Zenith: A Postcard Perspective of Historic Duluth, which can be purchased on zenithcity.com.
Reissuing old postcards probably isn’t necessary, because most antique stores have piles of the originals being sold for just a buck or two each.
It is still possible to catch trout within the city limits, so are there newer cities with trout streams?
I have to assume that in the 1920s you could catch trout via shore-fishing from any city around the Great Lakes, just as you can today. And as Niff pointed out, there are western cities (Coeur D’Alene, Idaho; Great Falls, Montana) where you can (and, I assume, could in the 1920s) catch trout.
So yeah, there are probably numerous examples, but taking the last one Ramos offered should be proof enough.
According to Wikipedia, Great Falls was incorporated on Nov. 28, 1888. Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition caught numerous Westslope cutthroat trout there in 1805, Paleo-Indians and Piegan Blackfoot Indians probably caught trout there prior to that.
The Missouri River runs right through the middle of the city limits and unless there was some weird anomaly a half century or more ago trout must have been there for the fishing when that lying little Duluth postcard came out.
I don’t know, maybe people were just ignorant back then and didn’t get around much.
From the April 2, 1912, Duluth News Tribune, with thanks to the PDD Fairy Research Spy.
At the next meeting, they bragged that they were the only city with trees.
I call this postcard “Mr. Lonesome Goes Fishing.”
“Not quite as pretty as the Cascades,” writes Margaret in 1904.
I’m sure Margaret must have been some kind of beauty queen.