Paul Lundgren
Sample Ballot for Duluth Primary Election on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011
Duluthians who live in the Fourth Council District, which includes parts of the West End, Piedmont Heights and Duluth Heights neighborhoods, will also vote on that council seat. The candidates are Jacqueline Halberg, Garry Krause, Ryan Miles, Wallace Newquist and Travis Silvers.
There will be more races in the General Election in November, but only one or two candidates filed for those offices, so they are not on the primary ballot. To see a complete list of candidates visit the “Duluth 2011 Election Candidate Filings” post.
Duluth Early History
A 1914 recap of Duluth history:
Proctor’s Yellowstone #225 circa 1963
The ol’ steam locomotive from the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railroad that sits in downtown Proctor has been there a long time. This photo is from the Cliff’s Barber Shop Collection, dated 1963. Below is a 2009 photo from the Minnesota Railroading Photos on minnesotajones.com. (more…)
All roads lead to Duluth
The location of the city at the head of navigation, in the center of a continent, 1,400 miles from the sea, gives it unequaled facilities (through 8,000 miles of railways centering here) as a natural distributing point for a great and prosperous section.
We have cheap power, cheap coal, cheap gas, cheap iron, cheap raw material of woods, in vast quantities with unequaled transportation facilities in every direction.
—Duluth News Tribune, Sept. 30, 1914
Hey Tourists, Welcome to Our City
In the search for info on the song “Welcome to Our City,” for the list of “Songs with ‘Duluth’ in the lyrics or title,” PDD’s Fairy Research Spy found this 1910 Duluth News Tribune illustration (which has the same title as the song, but predates it by six years). Note that the Aerial Lift Bridge is not a lift bridge … it was the Aerial Ferry Bridge back then, with a gondola car carrying cars/wagons across.
Poll: Should the PDD Calendar display or hide event descriptions?
Two weeks ago we launched the new PDD Calendar (in test mode) and asked you for feedback. Although we received good feedback in general, there was one specific area we asked about as an afterthought in the comments and didn’t get much response on, so we’ll ask again in a more obvious and simple-to-respond-to way (though it still requires some degree of explanation):
How would you like the entries on any given day to look? (more…)
Missing Person: Walter Clock
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing 69-year-old male. Walter Clock was last seen on Saturday at noon, leaving his residence in the 2200 block of West Second Street.
UPDATE: He has been found.
Amusement seekers are well cared for by theatrical houses of the Zenith City
That was the headline above this photo collage from the Sept. 30, 1914 edition of the Duluth News Tribune. Of course, the Lyceum, Rex, Grand, Zelda and Empress are all gone now. Only the Orpheum remains — remodeled and renamed the NorShor Theatre in 1941.
The Duluth Economic Development Authority is working with Westlake Reed Leskosky and SJA Architects on restoration plans for the NorShor. Have patience; it’ll take some time.
Duluth Beer Tour 2011
How many different beers are produced in Duluth and commercially available in July 2011? Could you drink a pint of each in one day and not require a stomach pump? (more…)
We are opposed to the notion that you are the first to be unopposed, Mr. Ness
At least one news organization reported yesterday that Mayor Don Ness is the first Duluth mayor to be unopposed in an election. Well, it’s not true.
Mayor Ness is indeed the only mayor in the past 126 years to go unopposed, but Maryanne Norton at the Duluth Public Library has found three Duluth mayors in the 1800s who were unopposed.
Sidney Luce was elected unopposed in 1872 and served one term.
Dr. Vespasian Smith was elected twice with no opposition — in 1873 and 1874. (Mayors served one-year terms until 1913, when the current four-year system began.)
Horace B. Moore was elected unopposed in 1885 and served one term.
(more…)
Introducing PDD Calendar Beta Test +
Perfect Duluth Day is launching an events calendar, and for the next month or so you can preview it at it’s permanent URL:
We have created this calendar because a majority of posts to the PDD Blog are about events, but the format of a blog is not a practical way to organize that type of information. If you wanted to know what’s happening today based on PDD posts, you’d have to select the “events” category and skim through weeks of random items looking for today’s date. That is lame.
So today our calendar is born. It doesn’t have a ton of events in it yet, and it probably has some technical issues left to be fixed, but the general format is set and it has seemed to be working well during our initial testing phase.
Check it out and tell us what you think with a comment to this post or an e-mail to calendar @ perfectduluthday.com.
(more…)
Lynx on its way
Captain LeeAnne Gordon of the Tall Ship Lynx informed the folks at Visit Duluth today that she estimates her ship’s arrival in Duluth at 3:30 p.m. The Lynx is sailing into the harbor for the Duluth Music and Maritime Festival. This will be the first visit to Duluth for the 114-ton Lynx, an interpretation of a privateer or naval schooner from the War of 1812.
Duluth Schools Construction Tour
Duluth Public Schools just released a 53-page PDF (which takes a moment to load) titled “Duluth’s 21st Century Public Schools: Construction Tour, July 2011.” It includes updated construction photos of the district’s three new and six updated schools. Here’s a brief gallery for those too lazy to take on 53 pages.
Twin Ports Bridge Festival 2011 Photos
Michael Franti and Spearhead put on quite the jubilant performance during the Twin Ports Bridge Festival at Bayfront Park. Cheers to organizer Shane Bauer; this was a great event. (more…)
Photos from Clifford E. Johnson of Cliff’s Barber Shop
Cliff’s Barber Shop in West Duluth is for sale. The proprietor, Clifford E. Johnson, died two years ago. I took the photo above in April, when Cliff’s shop was being cleared out after an estate sale.
The sale included boxes upon boxes of old slides. Most of them were of vacations to Hawaii and so on, but I found two boxes that had some local images, so I plopped down $10 and brought them home for a slide show. The folks at Swim Creative have scanned a few of the more interesting slides so I can share them on Perfect Duluth Day. (more…)
Perfect Duluth Night
Soak it in, people.
Duluth 2011 Election Candidate Filings
Duluth citizens desiring to be a candidate for elected office must file before July 19. Candidates for city offices file with the city clerk; candidates for school board file at Historic Old Central High School in room 215.
(The list below is a final list of who filed. Updates were made to this post as filing was happening, so some comments to this post predate the completion of the list.)
Mayor of Duluth
Don Ness (incumbent) (more…)
Duluth Music and Maritime Festival 2011
US Brig Niagara, Pride of Baltimore II and Lynx
Additional entertainers announced in recent weeks for the Duluth Music and Maritime Festival include Mason Jennings, Chmielewski Funtime Band, Heiruspecs, Haley Bonar and Cantus.
That’s in addition to the Suburbs, Gear Daddies, Cracker, Retribution Gospel Choir, Tom Kastle, Ninety to the Dozen, AM Rubin, Bounding Main and family programming by the Duluth Playhouse.
It all happens July 15-18 on the waterfront behind Grandma’s Sports Garden, Bellisio’s and the Paulucci Building.
(more…)
Happy eighth birthday to us
Perfect Duluth Day is eight years old today – Wednesday, June 29. We’ll be celebrating tonight at Burrito Union around 8:30ish. Stop on by. There will be a weird cake and an array of door prizes. (We’ll probably be out on the deck — space and weather permitting — so look there first. Find the people with cake on their lips.)
Also, yours truly (Paul Lundgren) will be a guest today on “The Local” with Christine Dean the Radio Queen, celebrating PDD’s birthday by playing songs with “Duluth” in the lyrics or title. That’s at 5 p.m. on 103.3 FM KUMD.
Thanks to Barrett and Starfire for starting this thing and to all you bloggers, cloggers and corn doggers who keep it going. We’re on a pace to hit 10,000 posts before the end of the year. That’s kind of something.
PDD Gravatar Poll Championship
[poll id=”8″]
This poll is now closed. The results were:
Don Ness — 49.2 percent
Bev — 19.7 percent
TimK — 16.6 percent
Hot Shot — 14.4
Duluth’s Retro Antique Mall
You may have noticed a new antique store has opened at 118 E. First St. in Downtown Duluth. It’s a pretty crazy collection. In one corner is some of the remaining used book inventory from R. O. Carlson’s famous store, next to it is stuff from the old Molly’s Bar in Superior … and on and on. There are about 10 different people selling stuff in there, one of whom is Doug Moen, best known for his massive collection of retro clothing. (more…)