I guess something about phrase “the evidence is pretty strong” got to me -- is this Duluth or is this not Duluth -- and I hadn’t worked on a mystery photo in awhile, so I decided to try to figure out at least one of the locations shown in these films. And I found exactly one. And it was really, really difficult. 

Ben Overman was a prominent figure in the Duluth Jewish community, president of the Jewish Federation and Community Council of Duluth in the 1950s. David Oxman was the manager of the Duluth Fur Company in the Bradley Building on Superior Street, a family business that opened on March 20, 1926 and went bankrupt during the Great Depression in 1936, not so long after the film was likely shot.

The city directory addresses given for both David Oxman and Ben Overman don’t match any of the houses shown in the films. And Ben Overman worked extensively in Duluth real estate for decades starting in the 1920s, meaning a general search comes up with tons of addresses next to his name that are not where he lived. Every time the fire department went out to one of his properties, they put it in the paper and listed him as the owner. Then – very proud of myself here – I realized I could search for Benjamin Overman, which would remove all the listings related to the Ben Overman Company, and that worked immediately. I found the birth announcement for William Overman on July 20, 1934 and it gave the family address as 2 Allen Avenue in Duluth. So then I figured I must be about finished, so long as that location matched a house in one of the films.

Except Duluth doesn’t have an Allen Avenue, so I had no idea how to find 2 Allen Avenue. And if the avenue doesn’t exist anymore, it seemed likely that the houses on Allen Avenue didn’t either. After finding several property descriptions of Allen Avenue houses for sale in the Kent Avenue District, it seemed clear that Allen Avenue was quite long, so probably did not just get demolished. From a 1940s bus map, it turns out that half of College Street used to be called Allen Avenue. But the numbers seemed to be different now and nothing matched on College Street. 

And that’s when I decided to give up, and only in closing out the window, saw that there is not only a West College Street, but also a much shorter East College Street. And that’s it. The footage between minute one and two in the first video was shot outside of the family home on 2 E. College St., formerly 2 Allen Ave., in Duluth. The present day house looks nearly identical. The evidence is now conclusive that at least some of the footage was shot in Duluth.

I’ve attached some screenshots of the house then and now and the documentation for all the information above.