Courtesy of the New York Public Library and Google Books, detailed Duluth School Board annual reports from 125 years ago are available online to geek out on.
Links:
Report of the Board of Education of the City of Duluth, Minnesota (1891 to 1894)
Report of the Board of Education of the City of Duluth, Minnesota (1895 to 1901)
This undated postcard, printed by Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, depicts the Spalding Hotel in Downtown Duluth. The back of the card notes the Spalding was “Duluth’s Popular Rendezvous” and offered a coffee shop, cocktail lounge and bar.
The Spalding opened at 428 W. Superior St. on June 6, 1889 and was demolished on Sept. 25, 1963.
This photo is dated Jan. 5, 1980 — 40 years ago today. It shows the Soo Line Port Switcher 2118, one of two switchers honoring the Twin Ports cities of Duluth and Superior.
Stitched together above to produced a jagged panorama are three photos by William Henry Jackson of Downtown Duluth shot just uphill from a gravel road we presume is an early version of what we call Skyline Parkway today. Below are the isolated images, which show greater detail.
In the past year — from January through December 2019 — the PDD Calendar published 7,937 Duluth-area events. Each one was edited by a human being before the “publish” button was pushed.
It’s a tremendous amount of work to keep up with all the submissions from the more than 1,000 organizations that have sent us info about their concerts, plays, improv nights and snowshoe hikes. That’s why once a month we set our dignity aside and remind readers how much we appreciate their financial support.
From the Jan. 1, 1910 issue of the Duluth Evening Herald.
Here it is, Perfect Duluth Day’s annual collection of things that were stapled to telephone polls, taped to lavatory walls, pinned to bulletin boards and uploaded to websites. As usual, by no means is this a comprehensive collection of local rock posters, nor is it a carefully curated archive of the best. It’s just a bunch of them we noticed and didn’t lose in 2019.
Ten years ago today — Dec. 30, 2009 — Richard Lee Armstrong released the album Pretty Dream Woman, featuring the track “Landlord of Duluth.” The song tells the story of Armstrong’s claim that he technically owns part of Downtown Duluth.
Last week we highlighted the five most-read pieces from the fourth year of Perfect Duluth Day’s “Saturday Essay” series. This week we ignore the numbers and look back at a few select essays of similar quality that might have been missed by non-compulsive followers.
In the past four years PDD has published 185 essays showcasing the work of 29 different writers, and we’re always looking to expand that roster. Anyone who has an original piece of literary excellence that seems to fit (or appropriately defy) the established format should email paul @ perfectduluthday.com to get involved.
And now, links to a few select gems from season four …
This Christmas card from Duluth jeweler Andrew Jackson promotes a special holiday sale 130 years ago, featuring “greatly reduced prices.”
A recurring source of confusion in the Mystery Photo series is whether particular images that share the stamp of the Post Card Shop in Minneapolis and the Penny Arcade in Duluth were shot in Minneapolis or Duluth. Here is another such image.
It’s an annual tradition at Perfect Duluth Day to wrap up each year of the “Saturday Essay” series with lazy top-five lists instead of arduously prepared compositions. Here we go again.
This week is part one, highlighting the essays that were read the most times according to Google Analytics. Next week is less of a popularity contest; we’ll showcase five underappreciated gems.
This postcard features a drawing of Duluth, Superior and the St. Louis River, and was copyrighted by Thomas W. Wahl of Wahl Realty Co. in 1908.
