History
Duluth’s Only Female Military Casualty of World War I
The latest posting at the Duluth Public Library’s blog Vintage Duluth is “Duluth’s Only Female Military Casualty of World War I” by David Ouse:
Over 115,000 Americans died in World War I. Slightly more than half of those were deaths from disease. Hundreds of Duluth men were casualties of the war, but only one Duluth military woman gave her life — U.S. Army nurse Lydia Whiteside.
Postcard from Miller’s Creek on Boulevard
It was 110 years ago today — June 23, 1908 — when this card was postmarked in Superior and sent to Mrs. M. J. Humphry and her family in Bangor, Wis. (more…)
Selective Focus: Bowwow Powwow
On Wednesday, June 27, there is a book release event for “Bow Wow Pow Wow” illustrated by Duluth artist Jonathan Thunder, written by Brenda Child, professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota, and translated to Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain, who teaches at the Misaabekong Ojibwe Language Immersion program for Duluth Public Schools. (more…)
Van Vick Paper Box Company of Duluth
The cribbage board above might not have been made in Duluth, but the box it came in was manufactured at 4902 Oneota St. in West Duluth. (more…)
Duluth Rudolph’s Furniture Store Fire of 1948
Duluth, Duluth, Duluth is on fire. On June 5, 1948, Downtown Duluth was recovering from the “worst commercial district blaze in history.” (more…)
Harbor Square: Downtown Duluth’s shopping center on pillars
An important sidebar to the history of Sears, Roebuck & Company in Duluth is the fascinating tale of the shopping-center-on-pillars that wasn’t. A plan was hatched in the late 1970s for Harbor Square, a roughly $70-million, 574,000-sq.-ft. shopping plaza to be built on stilts over Interstate 35 in Downtown Duluth. Failure to lure Sears as an anchor store was a key element that led to the project’s downfall. (more…)
R.I.P. Sears, Roebuck and Company of Duluth
Sears, Roebuck and Company’s Downtown Duluth department store; 1963 photo from the Kathryn A. Martin Library’s Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections at UMD.
The news broke this week that Sears Holdings will close 15 Kmart stores and 48 Sears stores, including the Sears at Miller Hill Mall and the Kmart at the Spirit Valley Shopping Center in West Duluth.
Sears has been in business in Duluth since 1929, when Sears, Roebuck and Company opened a department store at 129 E. Superior St., the modern-day location of Fond-du-Luth Casino. (more…)
Mystery Photo #67: Duluth?
A few years ago I came across this photo, saved it on my computer with just the title “Duluth,” and then forgot about it. I probably didn’t know much about it then, or maybe wasn’t even certain it was a photo of Duluth.
So … that’s all we’ve got to go on with this Mystery Photo. It looks 1800s-ish. Could be Superior Street. Can anyone verify this as a Duluth photo?
A Delightful Cruise on the Chicago Queen or the Streamliner
An old promotional flyer for excursions on the “world famous Twin Ports Harbor and Lake Superior.” (more…)
Postcard from the McDougall Terminal Building in Duluth
Construction on the McDougall Terminal Warehouse began in 1922, with the first unit completed in 1923. It was located at Ninth Avenue West and Railroad Street, just a bit southwest of where Pier B Resort is today. The building became a Jeno’s frozen foods manufacturing plant in the 1970s and was demolished in 1987.
Postcard from Duluth’s Shipping Canal, 1978
The message on the back of this postcard was written 40 years ago today — May 22, 1978. The card is postmarked the next day. (more…)
Mystery Photo #66: U.S. Mail boat near Duluth, Minnesota
This undated postcard photo depicts a U.S. Mail boat at a nondescript location. The only clue that it might be on the St. Louis River or some other body of water in the vicinity of Duluth is a penciled note on the back of the card. (more…)
PDD Quiz: Duluth Goes Hollywood
In a world where trivia abounds, a quiz emerges to challenge your knowledge of Duluthians in the film industry. Only the buffest of film buffs will prevail; do you have what it takes to arise victorious?
Zenith City Online was an invaluable source of research for this quiz. For more information on these and other Duluth performers, check out their biographies at zenithcity.com.
The next PDD quiz, reviewing headlines from May 2018, will be published on May 27. Email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by May 24. (more…)
Video Archive: Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage cut wrestling promos for 1988 Duluth show
Thirty years ago — May 10, 1988 — the World Wrestling Federation brought a card to Duluth for the sixth time. A television crew came along to capture matches for four episodes of the syndicated weekly program Superstars of Wrestling. (more…)
Webster House
Yesterday, for some reason, Perry Webster came to mind. Perhaps the milestone of Starfire’s 50th birthday got me thinking of Legends of the Twin Ports. Along with Scott Lunt and Slim Goodbuzz, the “Mount Rushmore” of Duluth would certainly include at least one of the Websters. With that — “The Webster House” — part Airbnb, part youth hostel, part “Lincoln Bedroom,” part homeless shelter, part fraternity/sorority, part halfway house, part fact and part fiction came to mind. (more…)
Whatever happened to Frisky the Bear?
Indianapolis Star — June 7, 1959
Anyone remember old Frisky, promoter of Duluth as the vital player in the new St. Lawrence Seaway? (more…)
The pizza-like item at Duluth’s airport
Ten year’s ago today, May 3, 2008, Duluth was featured on the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. “Megan saw this at Duluth Airport,” the post noted. “Given some of the bad food I’ve eaten in airports maybe it is a pizza-like item. Or maybe the menu isn’t actually printed ON a pizza.”
The post failed to mention one thing a commenter noticed. The person who wrote the sign also misspelled the name of the place.
The Afterburner Bar & Lounge at the Duluth International Airport closed several years ago and was replaced in 2014 by the Arrowhead Tap House.
Chris Monroe’s 2008 Homegrown Highlights
A little cartoon retrospective on the 2008 Homegrown Music Festival, drawn by Chris Monroe in 2008. (more…)
Making it Up North: Homegrown
WDSE-TV‘s series Making it Up North takes a look back at 20 years of the Homegrown Music Festival.
Postcard from Duluth Bethel
This postcard of the Duluth Bethel building was mailed 105 years ago today — May 1, 1913. It’s not easy to read, but the sender appears to be “Auntie Paul” and the recipient is Mrs. Mildred Wilkinson of Clare, Mich. (more…)
Selective Focus: Random Squares from Aunt Becky
The focus of this Selective Focus series has mostly been current artists and what they’ve been working on, but we also enjoy swerving into the realm of “found art.” This week is one of those times. PDD’s own Paul Lundgren fills us in on this collection.
PL: What we’ve got here is a sampling of old photographs that were temporarily stored at my house while my wife’s Aunt Becky was in the process of moving last year. I don’t know any of the people in the photos, I just pulled some out that I thought had an artistic quality. I asked Aunt Becky about them and she didn’t seem to know much of who was who or what was what in the pictures either. That’s something that naturally happens when you accumulate stuff as your elders die off. Pretty soon half of your photos are of someone’s grandmother’s ex-husband’s third cousin, etc. (more…)
Duluth Curling Club on the Shores of Lake Superior
This undated photo shows the old Duluth Curling Club perched on a bluff at the shore of Lake Superior. The building at 1338 London Road stood from 1913 to 1984. More Duluth Curling Club history can be found in “Postcards from the Duluth Curling Club.”
Ripped at Horseshoe Billiards in 2006
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. As construction continues on the new Ursa Minor Brewery at 2415 W. Superior St., this article harkens back to the days when the building was home to a pool hall and drinking establishment called Horseshoe Billiards. The article was originally published in the May 8, 2006 issue of the Transistor.]
I should know better than to expect middle-aged hustlers. I want to hang out with someone like Minnesota Fats tonight, and instead I’m surrounded by a crowd of mostly 25- to 35-year-olds who fall into two categories: 1) Unattractive men. 2) Unattractive women.
Now, I don’t require pretty faces to have a good time. But see, these creeps at Horseshoe Billiards are unattractive for reasons other than what nature dealt them.
There are a lot of men here wearing jerseys who obviously don’t play sports, for example. About half of these guys are wearing hats, and the ones who aren’t should be. (more…)
Description of a Ride on Duluth’s Incline Railway in 1926
“A 1926 Description of a Ride on Duluth’s Seventh Avenue West Incline Railway” has just been posted at the Duluth Public Library’s Vintage Duluth blog.
In Volume I of his two-volume 1926 novel The Duke of Duluth, author Thomas Shastid, a Duluth physician, depicts a scene in which the main character, John Gridley Smith, who is visiting Duluth, is walking on West Superior Street and comes upon the entrance to the Incline Railway on Seventh Avenue West. On pages 74 to 80, Shastid describes the Incline and John’s ride up to the top …