Paul Lundgren
View in the City of Duluth Circa 1872
This image from a stereograph circa 1872 shows a view of Superior Street in Downtown Duluth looking eastward from roughly First Avenue West. The odd-shaped building in the upper right corner of the image is the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad Grain Elevator A, which was on the shore of Lake Superior at about Fourth Avenue East. (more…)
Selective Focus: Grey Days
Foggy, rainy, cloudy … but not necessarily gloomy. May was a lot like April. Collected here are select images from the past month, via Instagram. (more…)
Postcard from Duluth’s Lincoln Park Pond
This 110-year-old postcard offers an illustrated view of the pond at Lincoln Park. The sender of this card, Anna Carlson, was kind enough to pencil her name on the front. The card is postmarked May 22, 1912 and the recipient is Mildred Wilkenson of Clare, Mich., courtesy of H. Hales. (more…)
Postcard from the Duluth-Superior Hi Bridge
Before the Blatnik Bridge was named for Congressman John A. Blatnik in 1971, it was called the Duluth-Superior Bridge and known colloquially as the “High Bridge,” but for some reason it shows up on a few postcards as the “Hi Bridge,” as if people were supposed to wave and say Minnesota-nice hellos as they crossed. (more…)
Postcard from the Hotel Duluth in 1942
This postcard was mailed 80 years ago today — May 12, 1942. The recipient was Constance Jarvis of Riverside, Calif. Ray Boyer sent it from Duluth. (more…)
Monthly Grovel: May 2022
Homegrown is over, but the music festivals keep coming. There’s the Festival of Nordic Music, Duluth Dylan Festival, Bayfront Country Jam, Bayfront Reggae & World Music Festival and on and on. The only reliable tool to help weigh the options is the PDD Calendar.
Each month we reach out with one beggarly blog post to remind everyone that human beings and not machines are at work editing and publishing calendar events. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account. (more…)
Homegrown Music Festival 2022 Photo Slideshow
Rock and roll is complicated. But the Homegrown Music Festival made it back after two years of online events during the pandemic. I took a bunch of photos and tossed the best of them into a slideshow. I made it to 58 acts, but that means I missed 131.
The song featured here is by Cars & Trucks from the 2013 album Theatre Stardusk. The band returned from a lengthy hiatus to perform a surprise popup at this year’s festival.
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Recovery and Smelt Parade
Select Instagram images from day eight of the Homegrown Music Festival and the annual Run, Smelt, Run! Parade and Party. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Roll Night
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdTWKooLB9K/
Select Instagram images from day seven of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Rawk Night
Select Instagram images from day six of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Soup Town Night
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdM3veisagE/
Select Instagram images from day five of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Westside Wednesday
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLebN4uTPO/
Select Instagram images from day four of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Postcard from Duluth’s Grand Opera House
Duluth’s Grand Opera House at 333 W. Superior St. was designed by George Wirth and opened in 1883. It was destroyed by fire on Jan. 28, 1889. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Canal Park Night
Select Instagram images from day three of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Craft District Night
Select Instagram images from day two of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Opening Ceremonies
Select Instagram images from opening day of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Homegrown Music Festival 2022 Primer
The Homegrown Music Festival is back in person, May 1-8. There’s a 100-page Field Guide available as usual, with all the specifics about the 195ish bands performing at 45 venues in the Twin Ports, but what are the hot updates? Well, that’s why PDD always kicks out a primer. (more…)
Postcard from Fifth Avenue West and Superior Street
One of the more common postcard views of Duluth in the early 1900s was the scene looking east down Superior Street from Fifth Avenue West, showing off the Spalding Hotel (right) and Lyceum Theatre (left).
The Spalding was demolished in 1963, and the Lyceum came down in 1966. The Ordean building now stands in the Spalding location; the Maurices headquarters in the Lyceum spot.
Postcard from Arch Street in Cloquet, 1912
Sidney Dahl of St. Cloud was the recipient of this postcard mailed 110 years ago today — April 23, 1912. The sender’s name was Ingga. (more…)
Postcard from the Opening of Navigation Season
This undated postcard shows a freighter entering the Duluth Shipping Canal at some point in the early 1900s. (more…)
Mystery Photos: Wide Awake and Green Dragon Studios
The three gentlemen in the photos above appear to be the same guys in different positions in front of different backgrounds with different cowboy outfits. They also are at two different Duluth photo studios, according to the ink stamps on the back. The first is from the Green Dragon Studio at 18 E. Superior St., and the second is from the Wide Awake Studio at 10 E. Superior St. (more…)
Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2022 has arrived
The 24th annual Homegrown Music Festival is less than a month away. The 100-page Field Guide is off the presses and will be available at Duluth-area bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days. (more…)
Monthly Grovel: April 2022
Zlata Chochieva? 311? Trampled by Turtles? Weird Al? The only reliable tool to help weigh the upcoming concert options is the PDD Calendar.
Each month we reach out with one beggarly blog post to remind everyone that human beings and not machines are at work editing and publishing calendar events. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account. (more…)
The Return of the Handshake
There was a brief minute at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when I thought I might never shake another person’s hand again. And I was fine with that. If we could take just one positive thing out of the widespread death, illness and cultural disturbance that began in 2020, it might be ridding ourselves once and for all of the compulsion to rub our palms together.
But even when I was in the middle of a long no-handshake stretch, full of wishful thinking about the future, I knew deep down that the germ clutch would soon return. And of course it did.
My prejudicial prediction was that most people wouldn’t want to return to handshaking, but a bunch of insistent jackasses would refuse to let it die. Then it would slowly become normal again and we’d all live with it. I was wrong. Pretty much everyone started extending their hands the moment lockdowns and mandates were eased. There was no resistance. (more…)
