Postcard from the Steamer Rotarian Landing at Fond du Lac

This undated postcard shows the passenger boat Rotarian docking at Fond du Lac on the St. Louis River.

The Rotarian was an excursion steamboat that operated in Duluth until about 1927. It was owned by the Clow & Nicholson Transportation Company. According to the 1920 advertisement below, the boat left the dock at Fifth Avenue West on the Duluth Harbor for five-hour daytrips and two-hour evening rides on Saturdays and Sundays.

The ol’ steamer’s demise is described in the article below from the Oct. 1, 1931 Duluth Herald.

The bridge in the postcard was built in 1919 and did not have a formal name until 2005, when the Minnesota Legislature voted in favor of naming it the Biauswah Bridge to honor American Indian war veterans. Biauswah was an 18th-century Ojibwe chief and warrior. The formal bridge-naming dedication was in 2008. The bridge had previously been informally referred to as the Highway 23 Bridge or the Fond du Lac Bridge. The Minnesota Digital Library titles a photo of the bridge “Jay Cooke State Park Bridge Over St. Louis River, Thomson, Minnesota.”