History Posts

Cheers: “They don’t like the food at the airport in Duluth”

It’s been mentioned a few times in “Duluth reference” posts on PDD, but the clip has never been featured. So here it is, the cold open from season 2, episode 20 of Cheers.

Video Archive: God Rocked Trailer from 2008

Ten years ago today — April 4, 2008 — the trailer was released for the Duluth-made mockumentary … and on the 7th Day, God Rocked.

The teaser text reads:

“Who will you root for in this laugh-out-loud rockumentary about a Christian Battle of the Bands? Wrathful Old Testament hip-hoppers the Sons of Abraham or born-again hard-rockers Savior? Lapsed Catholic Angie Hynes, who’s gone from punk to country in search of success, or the folksy love-fest of harmony-laden trio Glory Authority?

A recording contract awaits the winner. Who that will be, only God (and perhaps the promoter) knows …”

Postcard from Skyline Drive at Night

This postcard image looking out from Skyline Drive at the city’s hillside, downtown, Aerial Lift Bridge, Minnesota Point, Lake Superior and so on has been used a few times as Perfect Duluth Day’s cover photo on Facebook, and more than once has been met with the question, “Who did this painting?” The answer is, we don’t know. Old postcards rarely credit the artist. But maybe someone out there knows.

Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #10

Below are more items from an old trivia deck I bought at Savers. Some of the questions can be misleading and the answers wrong, but such is the way with history.

1. Name the master stone sculptor who carved the stone ornaments on so many Duluth homes and buildings.
2. What was the College of St. Scholastica’s earlier name?
3. Who were Bob Junkert and Don Rose?
4. In what year did the new Central High School open?
5. Where was the first junior college located in Duluth?
6. Which architect designed Endion School and the old Duluth Public Library?
7. What was the first building erected on the present site of the UMD campus?
8. What religious organization established St. Luke’s Hospital?
9. What was “Jeno’s Erector Set”?
10. A restaurant on Superior Street called Paddy Dorna’s was operated by Paddy. In what other career was Paddy locally famous?
11. Duluth’s first wedding, between Hester Crooks and William Boutwell, took place in what area of Duluth?

Video Archive: Spring on the Duluth Lakewalk, 2008

This video was uploaded to YouTube ten years ago today — April 1, 2008. It landed on Perfect Duluth Day two days later, posted by someone using the screen name “Repur.”

Duluth Show Case Company

The Duluth Show Case Company, doing business as Duluth Store Equipment or simply Duluth Equipment, was a maker of display cabinets using the “Duluth Method” or “Duluth Unit System of Sectional Store Furniture.” Read the ad copy to determine what that might mean.

Land of the Sky Blue Waters

This illustrated map depicting “The Minnesota Arrowhead Country” is from the Hotel Duluth Coffee Cub menu, circa the mid-20th Century. The illustration is by wildlife painter Louis S. Raymer, who graduated from Duluth Central High School.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune published an article about Raymer’s career in 2014: “Painter Louis Raymer, 85, on life, career and the heyday of wildlife art.” Raymer died in 2016.

Postcard from Goldfine’s Bridge Room

This postcard from Gallagher’s Studio of Photography shows the Bridge Room at Goldfine’s by the Bridge, one of the nation’s first discount stores. It opened in 1962 at 700 Garfield Ave. Today the building is home to the Goodwill Duluth store.

Rural Duluth man kills wolf with hammer, city very happy

The above clipping is from The Times of San Mateo, Calif., Jan. 2, 1956.

Mystery Photo: Diamonds are Forever … Except in Duluth!

This old photo seems to show striking workers at the Diamond Tool and Horseshoe Company in West Duluth. Or are the workers protesting the closing of the plant? What year was the photo taken? Who is the guy in the foreground crossing the street? There are plenty of questions to be answered in this Perfect Duluth Day Mystery Photo.

Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #9

Below are more questions from a Duluth Trivia Deck I found at Savers.

1. True or false? The fires of 1918 destroyed the Northland Country Club, the Homecroft and Cobb Schools, the Alger-Smith Lumber Yards and approaches to the Interstate Bridge.
2. In what sport did Walter Hoover excel?
3. True of false? The Viking Explorer, the replica of the ship sailed by Leif Erickson, has never sailed.
4. Who planned the Duluth Civic Center?
5. Who dedicated Enger Tower?
6. For how many years was Samuel Frisbee Snively mayor of Duluth?
7. Why was the Hotel Duluth’s Black Bear Lounge so named?
8. What recent year will be the year remembered at the year bears invaded Duluth?
9. What leading proponent of prohibition lectured in Duluth in 1910?
10. What suffragette spoke in Duluth in 1889?
11. What was the title of Nixon’s address in Duluth?

My head hurts

The days after Springing Ahead are always strange. But things were even stranger back in the 1960s when Duluth led a charge to match Wisconsin on the dates to change clocks. Mass confusion in Minnesota ensued, and even St. Paul and Minneapolis were at one time an hour apart in official times.

Postcard from the Old Light House on Minnesota Point

The historic crumbling lighthouse on Minnesota Point has been historic and crumbling for a long time. This postcard was mailed July 12, 1912. The Duluth Preservation Alliance listed the lighthouse as #7 on it’s list of “Duluth’s Ten Most Endangered Properties in 2017.”

PDD Quiz: Wild Weather

“If you don’t like the weather in Duluth, wait five minutes.”

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Duluth.”

Even if we’ve exhausted every other topic of conversation, we always have the weather to fall back on. Weather in the Northland can be extreme, but how familiar are you with those extremes? Test your meteorological mettle with this week’s quiz!

The next PDD Quiz, reviewing March 2018 happenings, will be published on March 25. Email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by March 22.

Mystery Photo #64: Edge of Unknown Lake

This photo comes to us from Les Locklear, who has that feeling we all get from time to time. You know you recognize something, but you just can’t place it.