Ryan Welles interviewed the Richardson brothers today on his “True Stories and Other Damage” podcast. In it, we detail the history of how we got to Duluth 20 years ago, and provide an overview of the creative projects we have been involved with here, from Gonzo Science to Mr. Nice to Lake Superior Aquaman. Other topics include our perennial concerns of psychedelics, UFOs, Dadaism, and several things in between.
The Lake Superior Marine Museum & Maritime Visitor Center doesn’t look much different today than it did in this postcard, probably from the 1970s.
The date October 12, 1918 will forever be remembered in this part of the world as a date that didn’t just make history, but erased history. Now, a century later, WDSE-TV presents a new documentary on the greatest catastrophe ever in northern Minnesota.
The undated postcard above, published by Gallagher’s Studio of Photography, shows the Flame excursion boat entering the Duluth Shipping Canal.
Here they are: “7 three-dimensional pictures in full-color Kodachrome” featuring “Duluth and North Shore Drive: Minnesota U.S.A.,” copyright 1950 by Sawyer’s Inc. of Portland, Ore.
This old postcard from E.C. Kropp Co. has the year 1917 penciled on the front, which seems roughly accurate.
The latest posting at the Duluth Public Library’s blog Vintage Duluth is “Duluth’s Only Female Military Casualty of World War I” by David Ouse:
Over 115,000 Americans died in World War I. Slightly more than half of those were deaths from disease. Hundreds of Duluth men were casualties of the war, but only one Duluth military woman gave her life — U.S. Army nurse Lydia Whiteside.
It was 110 years ago today — June 23, 1908 — when this card was postmarked in Superior and sent to Mrs. M. J. Humphry and her family in Bangor, Wis.
On Wednesday, June 27, there is a book release event for “Bow Wow Pow Wow” illustrated by Duluth artist Jonathan Thunder, written by Brenda Child, professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota, and translated to Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain, who teaches at the Misaabekong Ojibwe Language Immersion program for Duluth Public Schools.
The cribbage board above might not have been made in Duluth, but the box it came in was manufactured at 4902 Oneota St. in West Duluth.
Duluth, Duluth, Duluth is on fire. On June 5, 1948, Downtown Duluth was recovering from the “worst commercial district blaze in history.”
An important sidebar to the history of Sears, Roebuck & Company in Duluth is the fascinating tale of the shopping-center-on-pillars that wasn’t. A plan was hatched in the late 1970s for Harbor Square, a roughly $70-million, 574,000-sq.-ft. shopping plaza to be built on stilts over Interstate 35 in Downtown Duluth. Failure to lure Sears as an anchor store was a key element that led to the project’s downfall.
Sears, Roebuck and Company’s Downtown Duluth department store; 1963 photo from the Kathryn A. Martin Library’s Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections at UMD.
The news broke this week that Sears Holdings will close 15 Kmart stores and 48 Sears stores, including the Sears at Miller Hill Mall and the Kmart at the Spirit Valley Shopping Center in West Duluth.
Sears has been in business in Duluth since 1929, when Sears, Roebuck and Company opened a department store at 129 E. Superior St., the modern-day location of Fond-du-Luth Casino.
A few years ago I came across this photo, saved it on my computer with just the title “Duluth,” and then forgot about it. I probably didn’t know much about it then, or maybe wasn’t even certain it was a photo of Duluth.
So … that’s all we’ve got to go on with this Mystery Photo. It looks 1800s-ish. Could be Superior Street. Can anyone verify this as a Duluth photo?
An old promotional flyer for excursions on the “world famous Twin Ports Harbor and Lake Superior.”
