I got a free day at the bar (instead of work) because of the train derailment in Superior and the resulting benzene spill.
Duluth News Tribune retrospective from 2012: “20 years later, benzene spill still stings in Duluth-Superior memories”
Police & Violence: Domestic Disturbances Officer Safety Calming Techniques. Filmed in Duluth, featuring officers John Campbell and Scott Lyons of the Duluth Police Department.
Click the lil’ triangle above to hear a 37-minute podcast about Perfect Duluth Day on the eve of its 14th anniversary.
Duluth News Tribune Pressroom Podcast hosts Christa Lawler and Brady Slater talk with PDD grand poobah Paul Lundgren, food and drink reporter Lissa Maki, and PDD co-founder Barrett Chase (who left PDD in 2015 to become a web editor at the DNT).
Perfect Duluth Day’s 14th birthday party is Thursday, June 29, from 5-7 p.m. at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake. Free coleslaw while supplies last!
This postcard hit the mail 110 years ago today, sent by Hazel Britts to Capt. Luther Haleto of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Mass. The card is hand-dated June 27 and postmarked June 28, 1907. The illustration shows a banker closing his doors to “undesirable customers,” two black bear.
The Viking Motel operated at 2511 London Road from 1961 to 2000, and was demolished in 2001. The two-story, 30-room motel overlooking Lake Superior listed these amenities on its postcard: “Room Phones. Free Color TV. Coffee. Air Conditioned. Bridal Suites. Water Beds.”
Circa 1905. Photographer unknown.
At around 8 a.m. on June 22, 2007, a fire started in a waste conveyor machine at True North Cedar‘s manufacturing building on the Duluth Harbor. Employees attempted to fight the fire, but it was fed by sawdust and spread quickly. The warehouse, several boats and various equipment was quickly consumed in a huge smokey blaze.
Firefighters arrived at 8:17 a.m., but were unable to get hoses going until 8:50. It took a little more than an hour to put the fire out once water was available.
The Incline Plane Railway, a tram system operated by the Duluth Street Railway Company, began service in 1891. It carried passengers from a housing development at the top of the hillside into the downtown along Seventh Avenue West.
Jay Sonnenburg found this photo in his grandfather’s collection. It shows Denfeld High School under construction on the lower edge, which puts the year of the image around 1926. The groundbreaking ceremony for the building was held March 6, 1925; it opened for classes on Sept. 8, 1926.
Local musician Bill Nash produced this music video in May, recalling the June 15, 1920 lynching of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie.
WDSE-TV‘s recent documentary on the brewing history of northern Minnesota can now be viewed online … right here. Brew North: A Beer Story explores the many ways beer established a niche in the Duluth area and continues to leave its mark on the region.
This weekend (tentatively) the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad begins its 37th season of running 90-minute tours along the St. Louis River. This historical documentary was produced in 1983.
Prior to a Heavy on Wrestling card in Duluth this past weekend, “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart sat down for an interview on Fox 21. At the very outset he launched into an anecdote that seems to imply a tag team he managed, the Hart Foundation, wrestled the British Bulldogs in Duluth in the 1980s.
In the dressing room before the match, so the story goes, a dog named Matilda, the literal bulldog that accompanied the two wrestler “Bulldogs” to the ring, became agitated by Hart’s megaphone and unexpectedly attacked it. The summation of the story is that the surprise attack by Matilda in Duluth inspired planned antics by Hart at Wrestlemania III, the famous wrestling card that attracted 93,173 people to the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., considered at the time to be the largest audience for a live indoor event in North America.
Time for yet another classic from the collection of the late Emil Praslowicz, digitized by his grandson, Kip Praslowicz. In this edition a dance frenzy ensues at Chet & Emil’s in Birnamwood, Wis. as the Benaszeski Brothers bring the rock-infused polka action.
