During the Twin Ports Festival of History, my friend Phil Sher gave a speech about the history of the Lithuanian Jewish community in Duluth. Phil is the author of a recent book, Adas Israel, available on Amazon, that was a product of a unique partnership between the University of Minnesota Duluth and the community.
One of Carl Gawboy’s earliest memories is seeing a muskrat skin hanging on the wall in his house. “My father trapped animals and sold them to a fur buyer,” Gawboy said. “That’s when my fascination with trapping began.” Decades later, that interest became the subject of Gawboy’s latest book, Fur Trade Nation: An Ojibwe’s Graphic History, published by Animikii Mazina’iganan: Thunderbird Press. The release date is April 30.
This undated postcard, published by Odin Ebbesen, shows Superior Street in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood long before the neighborhood was called Lincoln Park. The church at right is, presumably, the Second Presbyterian Church of Duluth, according to text in an appendix of surveyed properties in the city of Duluth’s Historic Resources Inventory for the Lincoln Park Neighborhood.
Tracey Clark, owner of the resale shop Tracey’s Treasures of Duluth, submitted this photo of an old beer glass she recently acquired. It raises two questions: Where and when could a person or mermaid find Lozon’s Marine Bar and Grill? The answer, according to Superior city directories, was at 3827 E. Second St. in the Allouez neighborhood. Today that spot is the parking lot of the Tipsy Beaver Bar.
This undated postcard, published by Arrowhead Trading Post, shows scenes from the Duluth Zoo and Kingsbury Creek in Fairmount Park. The zoo’s name was changed in the 1980s to Lake Superior Zoo.
Through the advanced technology of consumer-level analog video we take a look back 20 years to KBJR-TV’s 10 p.m. news telecast from April 13, 2004.
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to C.W. Chips Bar & Grill and composed this article for the April 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. At the time, there was a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of Duluth City Hall, which was moved to Canal Park later that year. C.W. Chips closed in early 2005 when the building was purchased by the Whole Foods Co-op.]
Because I’ve spent the past several years trolling the suckholes and boozehalls of this wreck of a city, because I’m cheaper than a Mexican proctology exam and because I like to control my own drunken experience, I like to drink at home. Preferably alone.
Tonight, however, my sometimes pal Ricky Flours is in town and we’ve pissed away enough time together in my cramped, dingy apartment to know that we need to remove ourselves from the sticky, bottle-filled dungeon I call Chez Goodbuzz. I’ve become a hermit, and Ricky is little more than a purring cat lying around on my floor. We don’t have to go to C.W. Chips, but we can’t stay here.
“Someone dropped a dozen scrapbooks with Duluth newspaper clippings on my front porch,” began the email from Tony Dierckins. “Would you like them?”
“No,” I said out loud to myself before replying to Tony with questions about what the scrapbooks might contain.
To mark the start of the 2024 baseball season we take a look back at the Big League Manager Baseball Game, which was made in Duluth beginning, as near as can be determined, 70 years ago in 1954.
The Looney Tunes animated short Design for Leaving was released on March 27, 1954 — 70 years ago today. One-minute into it, door-to-door salesman Daffy Duck shoves Elmer Fudd onto a nonstop bus headed to Duluth. Fudd returns moments later on a Duluth Van and Storage Company truck after Daffy has updated his home with futuristic appliances.
The undated postcard above, published by W. A. Fisher Company, shows the Fish Fry Lodge on Highway 61 near Duluth.
The Lakewalk Voyageur Inn has finally been completely demolished (after a long time of sad hotel half-rooms on the hill). Revealed is this old sign. What used to be at that location?
I found a group of photos I believe show Buffalo Bill Cody in a procession on Duluth’s famous carriage path. Then there are a few photos of the show itself with a lot of people, including many American Indians highly adorned, milling around a circle. If you look closely you see white people sitting on chairs.
Are these all related to Cody’s time in Duluth?
The Duke of Duluth opened on Broadway in 1905. But who was the Duke of Duluth? And what happens when he finally visits his namesake city?
Minnesota Historia is a PBS North web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.
This postcard image shows the Fred W. Erickson grocery store at 2029 and 2031 W. Third St. in Duluth.
