John Edward Roemer wanted to build a system of moving sidewalks up Duluth’s steepest hills. The power to run the system would come from storage batteries buried in chambers beneath Superior Street. Tunnels would be dug beneath cross streets so the sidewalks could pass under the streets. At the top of the hill where the moving sidewalk system terminated, Roemer proposed building a pavilion and an aerial rail line extending to Fond du Lac, with stops in the West End, West Duluth, New Duluth and Ironton.

Read more at the public library’s Reference@Duluth blog.

The date on this bad boy is 1909. The cover image seems to suggest there was a floating railway perpendicular to the shipping canal where people could watch flaming ships torch the city.

I recently acquired a Duluth-Superior Transit Company token from a friend and thought I’d post it in case anyone can pinpoint the year of its creation or share any interesting details.

Since this old comic was available for a quarter at the Wallace Hankins Estate Sale, I thought I’d scan and post it, in case anyone finds it interesting or knows specifically what it’s about.

I would guess it’s from the 1930s, when buses began replacing streetcars, which may have resulted in cutting trees to widen roads, or maybe the tree is simply a metaphor for how the streetcar business would be hacked to death by buses.

The headline leads me to believe this was a newspaper editorial comic that the Park Point Community Club had printed on card stock and distributed around town to raise a fuss. The signature on the comic is John Harrison.