As near as can be determined through web searches, “The Couple from Duluth” was composed by acclaimed bassist Jay Leonhart and was originally released on his 1984 album with Joe Beck titled There’s Gonna Be Trouble. The version above is a live recording from Leonhart’s 2015 album The Bass Lesson.
The old Swedish coffee cottage in Duluth’s Fond du Lac neighborhood was featured once before on Perfect Duluth Day in the post “Mystery Photo #16: Holm’s Kaffe Stuga.” It was located on Highway 23 at 123rd Ave. W.
The punk rock band Meat Puppets released “Lake of Fire” on the 1984 album Meat Puppets II. It also appears as a hidden track on the 1994 album Too High to Die.
The Duluth reference goes a little something like this:
I knew a lady who came from Duluth
She got bit by a dog with a rabid tooth
Sure, you’ve heard stories of mysterious and unusual disappearances in West Duluth. What exactly happened to old so-and-so last night? Well, there’s a good chance your friend slipped into the Barmuda Triangle.
There are quite a few things we know about this mystery photo. According to info scribbled on the back we can discern that Hope Phillips and Andy Tureson are acting out a scene from a staging of The Jungle Book at St. Michael’s Church in Duluth.
For the 181st edition of Perfect Duluth Day’s ultra-thrilling photo-trivia sensation “Where in Duluth?” we exit the city limits and cross the bridge to Superior. Can you name the location where this sign hangs?
This Duluth song doesn’t actually have the word “Duluth” in its lyrics, but is loaded with Duluth references. It’s from the self-titled 2005 album by Duluth band Swimming with Nancy.
Left: 2018 crash at 2332 W. Third St. (Duluth News Tribune photo by Steve Kuchera)
Right: 1965 crash at same location. (Duluth News Tribune staff photo)
It happens at least once every 53 years or so. A motor vehicle smashes into the storefront on the corner of 24th Avenue West and Third Street.
Sept. 11, 2018 | Bus crashes into runaway SUV in Lincoln Park
Aug. 12, 1965 | Freak crash sends auto inside store
Among the students in the Nettleton Elementary School first-grade class of 1962 is famed street photographer Wing Young Huie, seated in the middle of the second row. In August Huie was selected as the McKnight Foundation’s 2018 Distinguished Artist. He is the first photographer to receive the honor.
This postcard of Duluth’s “municipal zoo,” now known as Lake Superior Zoo, was mailed 70 years ago today — Sept. 8, 1948.
The Kmart store in my neighborhood closed last weekend. Now there’s a giant empty space in the Spirit Valley Mall in West Duluth, with a faded area above the doors where a sign once read: “Big Kmart.”
It took more than 30 years for the store to run itself out of business, and I’d probably need a degree in finance and a long look inside the books of parent company Sears Holdings Corporation to ever understand. How does a neighborhood’s only department store — a place that’s known for always having lines at the cash registers — go out of business?
The answer to that question might be that retail stores are struggling in general, and any store with massive overhead costs that provides a lousy shopping experience doesn’t stand a chance. And the West Duluth Kmart was a lousy shopping experience.
The lines at Kmart perhaps weren’t due to the high volume of traffic, but instead the understaffing at the store. Target or Wal-Mart might have a dozen checkouts open at once; Kmart seldom had more than two.
Tim Winker of Saginaw found two 1926 Duluth photos while going through his family’s collection. “Any guess as to where on the hillside these might have been taken?” he asks.
Alice Cooper drops a reference to Duluth on this song from his 1982 album Zipper Catches Skin.
There doesn’t appear to be much information on the internet about the Duluth Eagles Club in general, much less the summer home shown on this old postcard. When were the Duluth Eagles formed? When did the club disband? Where is Grand View Beach / Aeire Lake? And where was the club’s main lodge in Duluth?
