Bike-a-Band Inaugural Ride
Tom Maloney built a rolling stage for a moving concert. Here’s a very brief montage of videos and photos from the inaugural ride of the Bike-a-Band.
Tom Maloney built a rolling stage for a moving concert. Here’s a very brief montage of videos and photos from the inaugural ride of the Bike-a-Band.
This 50-year-old postcard shows what was then the new Radisson Hotel behind the also new-at-the time Priley Fountain at the Duluth Civic Center. The message on the back of the card was written July 14, 1972, and the card is postmarked the next day.
It’s festival season and the PDD Calendar has it all sorted out — from the various outdoor concerts and art festivals to all the county fairs and neighborhood parady street-dancey things.
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 calendar items. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account.
The photo in this clipping from the Duluth Herald is dated July 10, 1922, and appears in the July 14 issue of the paper. That summer — one hundred years ago — Anna Dickie Oleson of Cloquet was campaigning to represent Minnesota in the United States Senate.
This photo from Detroit Publishing Company is a similar perspective to a shot previously posted on PDD. It shows Downtown Duluth at Superior Street and Fifth Avenue West at the turn of the 20th century, with the Spalding Hotel at right and the Lyceum Theatre at left.
Yes, more mystery fake cowboys from Duluth. Previous cowboy mystery photos were presented in the post “Mystery Photos: Wide Awake and Green Dragon Studios.” Cowboy nostalgia was apparently all the rage in the early 1900s, even though the Old West wasn’t quite that old at the time, because the photos featured here are from yet a third photography enterprise in Duluth, Owl Studio.
This postcard was mailed 100 years ago today — July 7, 1922. The illustration presents an aggrandized version of the Rex Hotel, which later became the Curtis Hotel, then Milner Hotel, then Seaway Hotel, and then briefly the Esmond Building. It was actually a three-story building, not four like the postcard shows, and the ground floor wasn’t so ridiculously tall as to dwarf any people or automobiles in front of it.
It’s been nearly 10 years since the pink Aerial Lift Bridge dollhouse toilet was first mentioned on Perfect Duluth Day — back when it was listed for sale on eBay. Since the reference to it was just a brief mention in a comment to the PDD Gift Guide 2012, perhaps it is time the Duluthy commode is revisited and given its own separate post, if for no other purpose than for speculating on its origin.
Perfect Duluth Day has been Duluth’s Duluthiest website for 19 years. Yes, it was June 29, 2003 when PDD’s first blog post was published … back when people didn’t know what a blog was.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was built at 209 N. Lake Ave. in 1869. The location is roughly where Harbor Pointe Credit Union’s main branch is today, across the avenue from Old Central High School.
The modern St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1710 E. Superior St. was completed in 1914 and the original in the photo above was demolished in 1925. More on the history of St. Paul’s can be found at stpaulsfaithformation.org.
Charlie Parr performing outside Wussow’s Concert Cafe in the spring of 2021.
The noticeable change in recent years to the outdoor concert scene in the Duluth area is the extension of the season. It used to be a mid-June to mid-September thing. In the pandemic era the patios and canopies of the region host music from April to November. But things still kick into high gear in July and August.
What’s hot on stages this summer? Here’s a summary.
On a Monday evening 50 years ago, someone named Ruth Ellen sent this postcard to Dee Ann Faerber of Independence, Mo. “The trees are beautiful,” she wrote. “Rain is supposed to stop Tuesday.”
This photo, credited to Clarence Sager, is dated June 18, 1972 — 50 years ago today. The Ideal Market was located at 102 W. First St., the present-day location of Lifehouse.
The store opened in 1921 and closed in 1999. The Duluth News Tribune Attic has photos and stories from its last days.
This undated postcard shows the Duluth and Northeastern Railroad #28 Steam Locomotive chugging along in Cloquet. The photo is by Walter R. Evans and the card was published by Mary Jayne’s Railroad Specialties.
Ticket prices have been on the rise, but the cost to find out that events exist hasn’t gone up at all. The PDD Calendar remains free. However, 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 calendar items. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account.
