Perfect Duluth Day

Last Chance Liquor and the Pawnbroker, 2011/2021

Here’s a look at a pair of East Fourth Street buildings — one soon to be demolished, another already lost to history. The photos on the left in the side-by-sides above are from Oct. 22, 2011. The ones on the right are from Oct. 22, 2021.

Last Chance Liquor, 1619 E. Fourth St., closed in 2015. Kwik Trip had considered a location there, but later lost interest. The building was originally the Krause Saloon, operated by German immigrants Gottlieb and Paulina Krause.

An affordable housing project called Brewery Creek Apartments is planned for the land at Sixth Avenue East and Fourth Street, which also includes the vacant Auto Lube building. The fence around the properties would seem to indicate demolition is looming.

The Pawnbroker building at 701 E. Fourth St. was torn down in 2017. It was built in 1889 as the Henry Halkam Store and Apartments.

Four years after the demolition, the lot remains vacant.