Video Archive: Duluth East mid-1960s Film
A previous Video Archive segment featured a 1956 film from the Mark Bruzonsky collection. This time we skip ahead to the mid-1960s and his years at Duluth East High School.
A previous Video Archive segment featured a 1956 film from the Mark Bruzonsky collection. This time we skip ahead to the mid-1960s and his years at Duluth East High School.
Well, there he is, Dr. Jern, standing on a porch in Duluth way back in 1910. Who is Dr. Jern? Is that house still standing? These are the mysteries we hope to unravel.
Though Perfect Duluth Day generally avoids publishing promotional propaganda on its blog, this UWS-produced video on the school’s history is a compelling look at 120 years of educational evolution in Soup Town.
Mark Bruzonsky, a 1965 Duluth East High School graduate who has gone on to become a journalist, author and consultant in Washington D.C. specializing in international affairs and the Middle East, has uploaded several of his family’s old films to Vimeo. The video above is a collection of films from roughly 1956, and includes footage of some familiar locations in and around Duluth.
Next to nothing is known about this photo, other than the claim it was shot in Duluth. Does this handsome home still exist? Does anyone recognize it? Who are these people and what are they doing?
Sammy Maida produced this documentary about U.S. Steel’s Duluth Works operation. Maida built a 20-by-6-foot model diorama of the mill that was on display at Saint George Serbian Orthodox Church in June.
Prior to the Feb. 27, 1991, Damn Yankees concert at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center Arena, KBJR-TV had a quick chat with Ted Nugent, Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw. In the clip, the “Motor City Madman” discusses his band’s mission to boost the morale of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
This picture was originally posted on the Duluthians of Zenith Facebook page. So far, the Pickwick and Spalding Hotel have been eliminated. The poster figures it must be a bar in the Duluth area because it’s stamped with a Duluth photographer’s name on the back. Someone in the thread recommended posting it here because you guys know everything there is to know.
This postcard image bears the ink stamp of the Russell Photo Co. of Fond du Lac, Minn. on the back, along with a handwritten note: “The ‘Columbia’ of Duluth, Minn.” There have been numerous S.S. Columbia’s throughout the world, but this one seems likely to be the same as the one profiled on Zenith City Online, which was launched in 1885 as the Mascotte. There are numerous physical differences between the ship in the image shown there and the one shown here, but the article notes “in 1912 Duluth’s Clow & Nicholsen purchased the vessel, lengthened it by over thirty feet, and renamed it Columbia.” If they are the same SS Columbia, why do both images (presumably before and after the redesign of the ship) bear the name Columbia and neither Mascotte?
Quick internet searches indicate John Rudolph Zweifel was a Duluth-based photographer from the very late 1800s to the mid 1900s. He had a few different offices on West Superior Street and was in the Phoenix Building circa 1918-’20. His home was at 4231 McCulloch St.
Who are the round-faced darlings in the photo? Well, that’s the Hail Mary pass being thrown here for the hell of it, just to see if anyone can figure it out.
Spirit Mountain did away with its swimming pool in 1984. It was probably a maintenance nightmare, and the notion of a pool on a hill overlooking the tributary to the world’s largest freshwater “pool” might be considered a little absurd in retrospect.
Trust me, though. It was fun while it lasted.
Similar to the “Vilkome to our city of Duluth” version, this is another “Dutch Kid” pennant postcard, popular from about 1900 to 1920. The same cards were produced for various cities across the country.
It’s difficult to read the names on this postcard dated July 13, 1907, so the transcript will represent them with blanks.
____ and I are having a glorious time. Took a beautiful drive this a.m. and saw this very spot. Be good till we get home.
_____
