Duluth National Regatta of 1916
One century ago, Duluth hosted the 44th annual regatta of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen. The event ran Aug. 11 and 12, 1916, with the Duluth team winning nine of the 12 events it entered.
One century ago, Duluth hosted the 44th annual regatta of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen. The event ran Aug. 11 and 12, 1916, with the Duluth team winning nine of the 12 events it entered.
Duluth Imperial Mill was the largest single mill in the world in the 1890s, but by the turn of the century its reign was over. There’s a full history with plant photos at zenity city.com.
Presented here are a few promotional items.
Kiss performed at Amsoil Arena in Duluth on Aug. 3, and … well, if you didn’t go, there are all sorts of videos shot by a guy named Tom. If you did go, and you didn’t care much for it, well, Paul Stanley thinks you are a miserable asshole.
One day you’re glamorous enough for a fancy Duluth studio portrait; one-hundred years later, no one knows who you are.
At least the photo on the left comes with half of a name: “Mrs. Mohler.” Other than that, what you see is what you get for clues. Anyone who recognizes one of these women or can provide further details will be declared winner of the internet for a day.
Twenty years ago, fresh out of college, I began my career in journalism. Everything was about to change in the industry, but it hadn’t changed yet. Print was king, profits were good and the prospect of any local news organization developing a website was the subject of a conversation that started and ended with the phrase “probably next year.”
I was hired as news editor at the Duluth Budgeteer Press, a weekly community paper that produced just enough news content to avoid being considered a “shopper.” Actually, for many years it was considered a shopper, but then another paper came along that was more of a shopper, and the Budge started to be considered a newspaper.
Manny’s Shopper was the weekly coupon rag that lowered the bar and lifted the Budgeteer to prominence. Although no one these days seems to know who Manny was or much else about what became of his shopper, one thing was important 20 years ago: it had committed what is probably not the biggest, but quite likely is the most hilarious, print media blunder northern Minnesota has ever known.
In the summer of 1994, a group of West Duluth kids met with a group of senior citizens from the neighborhood and wrote down their stories for a booklet. Here is the entirety of When West Duluth Was Young: An Intergenerational Writing Workshop, with thanks to Aunt Becky for passing it along.
Zenith Furnace Company was organized in 1902 and located on St. Louis Bay at 59th Avenue West. The company manufactured pig iron and byproducts of coal gas, ammonia and coal tar. In 1931 the company was acquired by Interlake Iron Corporation and was a source of steel during World War II for use in government defense equipment. It closed in 1962.
Some time around the year 1980, my parents acquired two giant four-drawer cabinets. Several decades went by before it was time to clean out the house and get rid of them. When one of them sold last month I pulled out a drawer and for the first time noticed the cabinets appear to have been built in Duluth. “United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, organized 1881, registered June 30, 1903,” reads the text on the ink stamp. “Union Made” in the “District of Duluth.”
I’m curious if anyone has seen anything like this or has any back story on who might have built them and when.