The Cosmopolitan published an article about Duluth on Jan. 19, 1871 — 155 years ago today. It was during the period when the Duluth Ship Canal had been partly dug, so all shipping traffic to that point either went through the Superior Entry between Minnesota and Wisconsin points, or docked at the breakwater built on Duluth’s outer harbor.

It should be noted that The Cosmopolitan referred to here is not the American magazine founded in 1886 in New York City, which is still in publication. The article below is from the other Cosmopolitan — “an international newspaper of news, politics, commerce, literature, arts, society” — which began publication in the United Kingdom in 1865. Its articles, including the one about Duluth, were often in the form of letters from correspondents.

The text of the article is below:

Wonderfully Rapid Growth of Duluth

A correspondent writing to a contemporary from the young city of Duluth says: — “It is situated at the head of the Lake navigation, on the American Continent, and is the starting point of the Mississippi and Lake Superior Railroad, now finished to St. Paul, and of the Northern Pacific Railroad, now being constructed, from the waters of Lake Superior to the waters of Puget’s Sound, on the Pacific coast. On the 22nd day of April, 1869, the entire population of this town from where I am now writing, was, all told, men, women, and children, ninety souls. There was not a store within five miles of it, and but half a dozen houses. Now it contains 160 stores, a bank, grain warehouse, five churches, one daily and two weekly newspapers, and a population of 4,000 souls. That you may form some idea of the appearance of this city to-day I send you a photograph of the main street, and in a few days will send you a view of the whole city. The railroad to St. Paul is now in successful operation. Over 3,000 men are at work on the Northern Pacific Railroad; 170 miles of grading is completed upon it, and the track is being rapidly laid; 65 miles being finished and in operation, and it is confidently expected that the Red River of the North, 250 miles west from this point, will be reached, and the road completed there before the contract time — viz., July 1, 1871. Westward from that point the flight across the prairies will be rapid, and within three years from this time the Pacific coast will be reached. The people here are all very sanguide as to the rapid growth of this city. And when on considers that the whole State of Minnesota must be tributary to it, and that the Red River valley and the new States springing into existence along the line of the new Pacific Railroad, and the heavy settlements in your British possessions that must be so largely increased by these new railroad facilities, must all seek the head of Lake Superior for their cheapest and most practicable outlet, there would seem reasons to believe that their most sanguine expectations would be realized, and that Duluth might, in its rapid growth, outstrip the famous city of Chicago, which boasts that during its most rapid growth it increased as much in four years as London did in four centuries during on part of is history. Duluth has now tributary to it a settled State with 700,000 in habitants, a State whose surplus produce this year will number twenty millions of bushels, and which it will, in another year, send via Lake Superior for a cheaper outlet. When Chicago had existed nearly twenty years, its entire shipments of grain were less than they have been at Duluth for the autumn of 1870.”