Duluth Savings Bank was established on Oct. 30, 1902 — 120 years ago today — and took the name Northern National Bank in 1909, a year before the Alworth Building, Duluth’s tallest commercial high-rise, was built. Northern National Bank occupied the main floor of the Alworth. The card above jokes that 40 years before the Alworth a two-story structure on West Superior Street was “Duluth’s First Skyscraper.”
Northern National Bank became Northern City National Bank in the 1950s.
From 1957 to 1980 the Alworth Building sported a glowing NC sign representing the bank. A merger resulted in the new First Bank, which moved to 130 W. Superior St. in 1988 and in 1998 became U.S. Bank.
