Set sail for this week’s Perfect Duluth Day quiz, which tests your knowledge of Duluth’s various tall ship festivals.
The next PDD quiz will review this month’s headlines; it will be published on Aug. 28. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Aug. 25.
Keeping in mind that I have no credibility, this is the true story of my psychic powers, which I don’t believe in. The reader may decide if I have psychic powers or not. I’ve already told you I don’t believe in them. I used to but not anymore. However, even though I quit believing, psychic things keep happening, which is profoundly irritating.
In chronological order:
Porky Pig Clairvoyance, 1st-2nd Grade (?)
Family Florida trip. A full-page ad in the back of a comic book transfixed me. I read it on my hotel room bed in a block of sunlight, sounds of the ocean in the distance. The ad was for a book about developing psychic and magic powers. It had fine print about the powers, psychic ways to make money, etc. I read every word, thinking it was real or could be.
Then I remember Dad driving and I was in the front seat with him. It was the just the two of us. Florida seemed particularly packed with road signage. A random thought flitted through my head as stores and restaurants flowed by: a line of Porky Pig dialog. No surprise there. It was fleeting and I paid it no mind. Within a couple minutes we drove past a barbecue place with a Porky Pig knock-off on its signage. I said, “Hey, I just thought about Porky Pig and here we are driving past this sign! That’s psychic!”
“Do you think so?” Dad asked, humoring me.
I did think so. Now I knew: I had psychic powers.
Duluth Parks and Recreation has released the draft Essential Spaces: Duluth Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Trails Master Plan. The 426-page PDF provides guidance on Duluth’s play spaces for the next decade and offers recommendations on how the city can “continue to support a healthy and vibrant community, enhance inclusion and equity, and advance environmental protection in our park system within a sustainable budget framework.”
Some years ago, I had a Duluth nameplate hanging from the back of my bicycle, which I suppose is why I impulsively bought another when I saw it recently in a Canal Park souvenir shop. I vaguely remember the one I had purchased in my younger years having a generic cityscape and not actually showing Duluth.
This one seemed no different, and might even be the same design, but this time I noticed that the building on the far left had a rather specific architecture. Checking with a group of skyscraper-obsessed friends led me to a conclusion that I should have reached myself: this Duluth souvenir depicts the skyline of St. Paul.
Former Duluth Huskies outfielder Cal Stevenson made his Major League Baseball debut for the Oakland Athletics on Aug. 10. He is the 301st former Northwoods League player to reach the majors.
Stevenson played for the Huskies in 2015. He was drafted in the 10th round of the 2018 MLB Draft by the Blue Jays.
This 1952 photo shows Northern Pacific Railroad Locomotive #1849 in Downtown Duluth, with Duluth’s tallest building — the Alworth — in the background among other structures. NP’s #1849 was built in 1923 and scrapped in 1957.
With 4,103 of 4,103 precincts reporting, here are the statewide numbers for races relevant to Duluth.
FEDERAL OFFICES
District 8 United States Representative, Republican Party
Pete Stauber | 51,404
Harry Robb Welty | 5,074
District 8 United States Representative, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Jen Schultz | 38,536
John Munter | 6,199
This postcard from the early 1900s has a pencil-written note on the back: “Jens Flaaten & the Minnesota band from Duluth.” As noted at zenithcity.com, Flaaten’s funeral was held 100 years ago today — Aug. 9, 1922. He died on Aug. 5 when he was struck by a motorist while crossing Superior Street at Fifth Avenue West.
The latest look at Duluth’s underworld from Duluth Urbex explores Buckingham Creek, which flows through Enger Park and down Observation Hill into the St. Louis River.
The clips above are from the 1959 film The Minnesota Woolen Company, obtained by Perfect Duluth Day via the Kathryn A. Martin Library Archives & Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Duluth and shared with permission from the St. Louis County Historical Society. For those who want to fully nerd out on this, the complete film can be viewed below.
Concerts on the pier, concerts in the park, concerts on the patio, concerts on the porch, bayside concerts, courtside concerts, fireside concerts … we’ve got concerts coming out of and back into our ears at 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 event listings. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account.
A smattering of images via Instagram from the weekend’s Festival of Sail in Two Harbors.
This postcard, published by Gallagher’s Studio of Photography, shows a typical scene from the Duluth International Folk Festival at Leif Erikson Park. The postcard was mailed 60 years ago today — Aug. 6, 1962 — by someone named Sara who mentions attending the festival in her message on the back of the card.
Videographer Adam Jagunich flew his Yuneec Typhoon H Plus hexacopter at the Duluth/Superior border to capture sunset scenes at Wisconsin Point.
