History Posts

Book Signing Party for Swinging Doors, A Memoir by Quinlan Michael Hampston

Aug 17, 2011 1 Comment

Saturday, Aug. 20, 4 to 6 pm., at R.T. Quinlan’s, 220 W. Superior Street. Easy access and parking at 221 W. Michigan.

Mischief and mishap figure into Quinlan Michael Hampston’s hilarious stories of how a kid who couldn’t read grew up to be a man who would write a book. Funny, yet poignant, Swinging Doors suggests, without apology, that steering a zigzag course can land a guy in a surprisingly good place.

Hampston, an owner of R.T. Quinlan’s,  chronicles his life  growing up in Duluth, serving in the Navy aboard an aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific, Desert Storm and his life of a barkeep. Along the way, Hampston travels with a goofy but lovable bunch of characters – kids chasing trains and cows, sailors chasing skirts and bar buddies telling tales and chasing their next drink. Read more at swingingdoorsbook.com.


Events, History, Recommendations

Death-Defying Archeologists of Lake Superior

Aug 07, 2011 No Comments


History, Outdoors, Videos

Duluth Early History

Aug 06, 2011 No Comments

A 1914 recap of Duluth history:


History

Proctor’s Yellowstone #225 circa 1963

Aug 02, 2011 1 Comment

ProctorMN-DM&IR

The ol’ steam locomotive from the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railroad that sits in downtown Proctor has been there a long time. This photo is from the Cliff’s Barber Shop Collection, dated 1963. Below is a 2009 photo from the Minnesota Railroading Photos on minnesotajones.com.

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History, Photos ,

All roads lead to Duluth

Aug 01, 2011 10 Comments

The location of the city at the head of navigation, in the center of a continent, 1,400 miles from the sea, gives it unequaled facilities (through 8,000 miles of railways centering here) as a natural distributing point for a great and prosperous section.

We have cheap power, cheap coal, cheap gas, cheap iron, cheap raw material of woods, in vast quantities with unequaled transportation facilities in every direction.

—Duluth News Tribune, Sept. 30, 1914


History

Tweed Museum showing 30 rare and collectable concert posters

Aug 01, 2011 10 Comments

This link — Poster Show — is to the article running this week in the Reader (the website article has many more pictures) that contains information about nearly every poster in the show and interviews with almost every artist. In the article on my site you can read about each poster from the artists’ perspective and how they viewed the art and the era. Print it out and walk through the show!

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Art, Events, History, Music

Past is prologue

Jul 29, 2011 No Comments

Wool: 1911 > Debt ceiling: 2011


History

Hey Tourists, Welcome to Our City

Jul 29, 2011 16 Comments

In the search for info on the song “Welcome to Our City,” for the list of “Songs with ‘Duluth’ in the lyrics or title,” PDD’s Fairy Research Spy found this 1910 Duluth News Tribune illustration (which has the same title as the song, but predates it by six years). Note that the Aerial Lift Bridge is not a lift bridge … it was the Aerial Ferry Bridge back then, with a gondola car carrying cars/wagons across.


History

Global Goes Local

Jul 27, 2011 2 Comments

After 32 years, the founders of Global Village (from Minneapolis) have passed the torch to a long time employee and hometown girl. Friday, we celebrate this new chapter for the old downtown icon and present the Lotus Center, our new community yoga and dance (and more!) studio on the second floor.

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Events, History, Recommendations

Archeology of Lake Superior

Jul 27, 2011 3 Comments

[This post originally contained an embedded video that no longer exists at its source.]


History, Videos

Amusement seekers are well cared for by theatrical houses of the Zenith City

Jul 25, 2011 5 Comments

That was the headline above this photo collage from the Sept. 30, 1914 edition of the Duluth News Tribune. Of course, the Lyceum, Rex, Grand, Zelda and Empress are all gone now. Only the Orpheum remains — remodeled and renamed the NorShor Theatre in 1941.

The Duluth Economic Development Authority is working with Westlake Reed Leskosky and SJA Architects on restoration plans for the NorShor. Have patience; it’ll take some time.


History

Businesses of Duluth

Jul 22, 2011 8 Comments

Halvorson Trees

UMD Library’s Northeast Minnesota Historical Center recently contributed 493 images of Duluth businesses to the Minnesota Digital Library. This is a great collection of images, selected by NEMHC curator Pat Maus. These images add to the over 2000 photographs, documents, and maps from the Center already in the Digital Library.

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History, Photos

We are opposed to the notion that you are the first to be unopposed, Mr. Ness

Jul 20, 2011 29 Comments

At least one news organization reported yesterday that Mayor Don Ness is the first Duluth mayor to be unopposed in an election. Well, it’s not true.

Mayor Ness is indeed the only mayor in the past 126 years to go unopposed, but Maryanne Norton at the Duluth Public Library has found three Duluth mayors in the 1800s who were unopposed.

Sidney Luce was elected unopposed in 1872 and served one term.

Dr. Vespasian Smith was elected twice with no opposition — in 1873 and 1874. (Mayors served one-year terms until 1913, when the current four-year system began.)

Horace B. Moore was elected unopposed in 1885 and served one term.

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History ,

Fishing on the Knife River, Spring 1962

Jul 16, 2011 2 Comments

KnifeRiver1962

From the Cliff’s Barber Shop Collection.


History, Photos , ,

Photos from Clifford E. Johnson of Cliff’s Barber Shop

Jul 09, 2011 23 Comments

CliffsBarberShopApril2010

Cliff’s Barber Shop in West Duluth is for sale. The proprietor, Clifford E. Johnson, died two years ago. I took the photo above in April, when Cliff’s shop was being cleared out after an estate sale.

The sale included boxes upon boxes of old slides. Most of them were of vacations to Hawaii and so on, but I found two boxes that had some local images, so I plopped down $10 and brought them home for a slide show. The folks at Swim Creative have scanned a few of the more interesting slides so I can share them on Perfect Duluth Day.

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History, Photos, R.I.P. , , ,