Duluth’s Soo Line passenger depot opened at 602 W. Superior St. in 1910. It was designed by C. E. Bell, Tyrie and Chapman of Minneapolis in the Romanesque style. The depot closed in the 1960s and was torn down in 1972.
“When the Soo Line built the station in 1910 the NP had a lock on the right of way,” Dan West notes on his online index of Minnesota train stations. “The Soo was able to sneak its way in, except for a quarter mile or so where the NP (Northern Pacific Railway) tracks were right up against a solid rock bluff. The line also had to somehow get around the Bridgeman-Russell Creamery. So the railroad tunneled through solid rock under Michigan Street to get to the depot.”
When construction began in 1907, it was for the Wisconsin Central Railway terminal.
“Shortly after excavation began, the Soo Line Railway acquired most of the shares of the Wisconsin Central and took control of the tunneling operations. It would now be the Soo Line Tunnel for the Soo Line Depot,” Dan Turner writes on his blog, Substreet.
Soo Line passenger depot interior circa the 1940s.
Interior view of the depot circa 1944.
Soo Line Depot next to the Duluth Union Depot, circa the 1960s, with a parking lot where the Radisson Hotel was built in 1970, and an open field where the Radisson’s parking ramp was constructed.
This undated image shows the approach to the depot. We know the photo was shot prior to July 9, 1939, which was the last day streetcars ran in Duluth.
Dated 1963, this photo shows the depot with a smattering of “closed” signs.
This photo is vaguely dated “1970?” The building was torn down in 1972 to make way for construction of the Gateway Tower apartment complex, which remains there today.
