Selective Focus: Gallery of Duluth Mayor Portraits
Happy Inauguration Day. Let’s celebrate peaceful transfers of power with a retrospective view of the portraits of Duluth’s Mayors. For many years, these portraits hung in the hallways of City Hall, but were recently taken down to be cleaned, maintained, digitized and cataloged. The images used here are taken from the Minnesota Digital Library. More information about each mayor is available at the site.
Don Ness says portraits are traditionally done 2-3 years after a mayor leaves office, and he anticipates his portrait will be added to the collection some time this year. So scroll backward through time with us and enjoy the virtual gallery of Duluth mayors.
41: Emily Larson, 2016-present
40. Don Ness, 2008-16
39. Herb Bergson, 2004-08
38: Gary L. Doty , 1992-04
37. John Fedo , 1980-92
36: Robert C. Beaudin, 1975-79
35: Ben Boo, 1967-75
34: George D. Johnson, 1962-67
33: Emil Clifford Mork, 1959-62
32: Eugene R. Lambert, 1956-59
31: George D. Johnson, 1953-56
30: George W. Johnson, 1945-53
29: Edward Hatch, 1941-45
28: Carl Rudolf Berghult, 1937-41
27: Samuel Frisby Snively,
1921-37
26: Trevanion W. Hugo, 1900-04; 1920-21
25: Judge Clarence R. Magney, 1917-20
24: William I. Prince, 1913-17**
23: Dr. John A. McCuen, 1912-13
22: Marcus B. Cullum, 1910-12 (no image available)
21. Roland Dorwin Haven, 1908-10
20. Marcus B. Cullum, 1904-08 (no image available)
19: Trevanion W. Hugo, 1900-04; 1920-21
18: Henry Truelsen, 1896-00
17. Ray T. Lewis, 1894-96
16: Charles d’Autremont, 1892-94
15: Marcus Jerome Davis, 1890-92
14: John B. Sutphin, 1886-90
13: Horace B. Moore, 1885-86
12: Josiah Davis Ensign, 1884-85
11: Col. Charles Hinman Graves , 1883-84 (no image available)
10: Joshua R. Culver, 1883
9: Col. Charles Hinman Graves, 1882-83 (no image available)
8: Josiah Davis Ensign, 1881-82, *1880-81
* Peter Dean, 1880
* John Drew, 1879-80
* Andreas Mitchell Miller, 1877-79
7: John Drew, 1876-77
6. Peter Dean, 1875-76
5. Dr. Vespasian Smith, 1873-75
4: Clinton Markell, 1873 (no image available)
3: Sidney Luce, 1872-73
2: Clinton Markell, 1871-72 (no image available)
1: Joshua B. Culver, 1870-71
* From 1877-81, Duluth was a village and had village presidents instead of mayors.
** Mayors served one-year terms until 1913, when the current four-year system began.
Observations:
1) The first 19 mayors pictured sport facial hair.
2) The last 13 do not.
3) The cloud of green vapor emanating from Mayor Boo’s pipe is intriguing.
Entries 15, 16 and 17 have the wrong years listed (off by a century, it appears).
Doh! Time travelin’ politicians. Thanks for the heads up – fixed it.
We need a mayor who will hire Brian Barber for one of his signature portraits!
Wow, you really captured Emily’s energy!
Meanwhile… outside the idyllic sanctuary of PDD, the world experienced a Category 11 Shitnami as Hurricane Orangey made landfall yesterday in the year of our lord January 20 2017- kickstarting the zombie apocalypse while demonstrating how Americans, spoon-fed a steady diet of reality TV and fake news, really didn’t know anything about survival at all. So as we tiptoe through the tulips down memory lane, let us be soothed by singing along to this new song I wrote for you now called I Don’t Want to Die in Duluth. It goes a little something like this:
We represent the Lolly pop Guild,
The Lolly pop Guild,
The Lolly pop Guild
And in the name of the Lolly pop Guild,
We wish to welcome you to Trumpkinland
We welcome you to Orangey’s Plan
Rick Perry’s finger is up Pandora’s ball
We all go together when we fall.
McCuen’s hair is so…triangular!
Yesterday afternoon, I listened to a 90 year old black man tell a story about how he went to Mayor Mork to ask for help when the neighborhood he tried to move to in Lakeside petitioned and attempted to block his efforts to buy his property and build his house circa 1959. Mork told him there was nothing he could do about it. Nice fella.