Postcard from Spruce Point Motel in Beaver Bay
Featured here are two undated postcards from Gallagher’s Studio of Photography that promote the Spruce Point Motel in Beaver Bay. The older card shows how it was originally a one-story structure before the second story was added.
The caption on the back of the card at the top of the post reads:
Spruce Point Motel
Beaver Bay, Minnesota
Located on Scenic North Shore Drive — Hiway 61
Lake Superior Circle Route
Thermostatically controlled steam heat. Completely modern.
Tubs and Showers. Free T.V. Dinner adjoining.
Phone 226-3926
I think this is the motel that had a sign saying “colored TV.”
I kind of thought so, too. The “colored cable-TV” place was called the Beaver Bay Motel, and it looked pretty different, but it’s possible that it might have been a remodel of the Spruce Point.
I was going to try to figure that out, but the Beaver Bay Motel got torn down a summer or two ago and then I thought I’d just leave it for the internet to figure out.
(The photo in this comment is from 2009.)
Internet says no. If you look at a Streetview image from 2012, the Beaver Bay Motel is not only much larger but has a basement level that the Spruce Point Motel does not.
It seems that the adjacent apartment building was torn down at the same time as the Beaver Bay Motel. Below is an aerial image of both buildings from 2007. The siting and underlying shape of the apartment building is similar enough that you could almost imagine a series of renovations and additions over several decades that transformed the Spruce Point Motel into that structure, but the motel may have just been in one of those now vacant lots along the road. I couldn’t get the internet to give a definite answer on that one.
I saw that image Mathew James posted and I’m thinking, boy that looks familiar. Looked it up and yep I shot that for the DNR Coastal Program in 2008. Good to see people are still using Landview!