History Posts

DuluthiLeaks: Duluth Foghorn Facts

May 01, 2024 No Comments

It’s been 100 years since Duluth’s original diaphone fog siren was installed at the Duluth Shipping Canal. That siren was decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1968 and replaced by an electric whistle. In 1983 another old diaphone foghorn was acquired and installed. It was used on a ceremonial basis until 1995, then returned to regular service as a maritime aid to navigation. Community members immediately complained it was too loud. The controversy raged on until the horn was dismantled in 2006.

For the sixth edition of DuluthiLeaks — Perfect Duluth Day’s series in which public documents are presented as if they contain secret information leaked from an anonymous whistle blower — we present “Duluth Foghorn Facts,” a document and collection of images compiled by Jeffrey L. Laser of Bellville, Ohio. At some point after 1996, Laser put together the information below, delving into the nitty gritty of the diaphone foghorn that was housed in the Duluth South Breakwater Outer Light from 1983 to 2006.

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Adas Israel: A Talk and a Book

Apr 26, 2024 No Comments

During the Twin Ports Festival of History, my friend Phil Sher gave a speech about the history of the Lithuanian Jewish community in Duluth. Phil is the author of a recent book, Adas Israel, available on Amazon, that was a product of a unique partnership between the University of Minnesota Duluth and the community.

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History

Fur Trade Nation: Linking Continents

Apr 26, 2024 No Comments

One of Carl Gawboy’s earliest memories is seeing a muskrat skin hanging on the wall in his house. “My father trapped animals and sold them to a fur buyer,” Gawboy said. “That’s when my fascination with trapping began.” Decades later, that interest became the subject of Gawboy’s latest book, Fur Trade Nation: An Ojibwe’s Graphic History, published by Animikii Mazina’iganan: Thunderbird Press. The release date is April 30.

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Art, History ,

Postcard from Superior Street at 15th Avenue West

Apr 24, 2024 7 Comments

This undated postcard, published by Odin Ebbesen, shows Superior Street in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood long before the neighborhood was called Lincoln Park. The church at right is, presumably, the Second Presbyterian Church of Duluth, according to text in an appendix of surveyed properties in the city of Duluth’s Historic Resources Inventory for the Lincoln Park Neighborhood.

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Lozon’s Marine Bar and Grill

Apr 19, 2024 No Comments

Tracey Clark, owner of the resale shop Tracey’s Treasures of Duluth, submitted this photo of an old beer glass she recently acquired. It raises two questions: Where and when could a person or mermaid find Lozon’s Marine Bar and Grill? The answer, according to Superior city directories, was at 3827 E. Second St. in the Allouez neighborhood. Today that spot is the parking lot of the Tipsy Beaver Bar.

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Postcard from the Municipal Zoo at Fairmount Park

Apr 15, 2024 No Comments

This undated postcard, published by Arrowhead Trading Post, shows scenes from the Duluth Zoo and Kingsbury Creek in Fairmount Park. The zoo’s name was changed in the 1980s to Lake Superior Zoo.

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Video Archive: KBJR Northland’s NewsCenter 2004 Newscast

Apr 13, 2024 No Comments

Through the advanced technology of consumer-level analog video we take a look back 20 years to KBJR-TV’s 10 p.m. news telecast from April 13, 2004.

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Ripped at C.W. Chips Bar & Grill in 2004

Apr 06, 2024 1 Comment

[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to C.W. Chips Bar & Grill and composed this article for the April 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. At the time, there was a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of Duluth City Hall, which was moved to Canal Park later that year. C.W. Chips closed in early 2005 when the building was purchased by the Whole Foods Co-op.]

Because I’ve spent the past several years trolling the suckholes and boozehalls of this wreck of a city, because I’m cheaper than a Mexican proctology exam and because I like to control my own drunken experience, I like to drink at home. Preferably alone.

Tonight, however, my sometimes pal Ricky Flours is in town and we’ve pissed away enough time together in my cramped, dingy apartment to know that we need to remove ourselves from the sticky, bottle-filled dungeon I call Chez Goodbuzz. I’ve become a hermit, and Ricky is little more than a purring cat lying around on my floor. We don’t have to go to C.W. Chips, but we can’t stay here.

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Abandoned Scrapbooks from circa 1939 to 1947

Apr 03, 2024 1 Comment

“Someone dropped a dozen scrapbooks with Duluth newspaper clippings on my front porch,” began the email from Tony Dierckins. “Would you like them?”

“No,” I said out loud to myself before replying to Tony with questions about what the scrapbooks might contain.

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History

Big League Manager Baseball Game from West Duluth

Mar 28, 2024 No Comments

To mark the start of the 2024 baseball season we take a look back at the Big League Manager Baseball Game, which was made in Duluth beginning, as near as can be determined, 70 years ago in 1954.

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History, Sports ,

Duluth Van and Storage Company

Mar 27, 2024 No Comments

The Looney Tunes animated short Design for Leaving was released on March 27, 1954 — 70 years ago today. One-minute into it, door-to-door salesman Daffy Duck shoves Elmer Fudd onto a nonstop bus headed to Duluth. Fudd returns moments later on a Duluth Van and Storage Company truck after Daffy has updated his home with futuristic appliances.

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History, Videos ,

Postcards from the Fish Fry Lodge

Mar 21, 2024 No Comments

The undated postcard above, published by W. A. Fisher Company, shows the Fish Fry Lodge on Highway 61 near Duluth.

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Who had the “biggest deal in town”?

Mar 13, 2024 14 Comments

The Lakewalk Voyageur Inn has finally been completely demolished (after a long time of sad hotel half-rooms on the hill). Revealed is this old sign. What used to be at that location?


History

Found: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Pictures (from Duluth?)

Mar 11, 2024 4 Comments

I found a group of photos I believe show Buffalo Bill Cody in a procession on Duluth’s famous carriage path. Then there are a few photos of the show itself with a lot of people, including many American Indians highly adorned, milling around a circle. If you look closely you see white people sitting on chairs.

Are these all related to Cody’s time in Duluth?

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Minnesota Historia: The Duke of Duluth

Mar 05, 2024 No Comments

The Duke of Duluth opened on Broadway in 1905. But who was the Duke of Duluth? And what happens when he finally visits his namesake city?

Minnesota Historia is a PBS North web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.


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