Historic Lutsen Lodge destroyed by fire
Minnesota Public Radio reports Lutsen Lodge, also known as the historic lodge at Lutsen Resort, was destroyed in a midnight fire. Resort officials say it’s a total loss.
Minnesota Public Radio reports Lutsen Lodge, also known as the historic lodge at Lutsen Resort, was destroyed in a midnight fire. Resort officials say it’s a total loss.
(Excerpts from Scions of Cloquet by Jean-Michel Cloquet, 1946, out of print)
I was left for dead at Nopeming sanatorium in 1918, as the Cloquet-Duluth-Moose Lake fire combined with World War I, tuberculosis, and the influenza pandemic just hitting the northland. I’d brought my tuberculosis home with me from the filthy trenches of the Somme. There wouldn’t be an armistice for a month. Reaching Duluth, I was trucked on the dirt road to Nopeming with other infected veterans, fresh off the hospital ship. There we met citizens suffering from the homegrown TB outbreak traced to sewage in Lake Superior. That’s the Duluth I returned to. I’d barely survived overseas, evading German flamethrowers. Some of my trench-mates weren’t so lucky. Now I was barely surviving even though I was stateside, too sick to be properly shell-shocked from the omnipresent global crisis. So they tucked us away 10 miles outside of town in the forest sanatorium. Its name is Ojibwe for “in the woods.” The woods that burned.
This new Twin Cities Public Television documentary explores the state’s worst natural disasters. Host Mary Lahammer, along with historian Hy Berman, meteorologist Paul Douglas, and climatologist Mark Seeley tell the story of the deadly blazes that have taken more than a thousand lives in Minnesota.
A flour mill fire in Superior caused more than $2.6 million in damage on Nov. 9, 1907 — 115 years ago today. The Duluth News Tribune referred to it as “the most disastrous fire in point of property loss, and probably the most spectacular blaze ever seen at the Head of the Lakes.”
The postcard shown above was mailed nine days after the fire. It was sent by someone named Frank to Master A. Pearson of Spokane, Wash. The photo apparently shows the smoldering remains of the Freeman Flour Mills and Elevator — Franks wrote “Fremon Mill” on the back of the card.
The Duluth Fire Department tweeted this photo at 7:55 a.m. noting a heavy fire on the second floor of the Esmond building.
The former Seaway Hotel, more recently known as the Esmond building, burned for seven hours today while fire fighters struggled in sub-arctic temperatures to extinguish it. The condemned structure at 2001 W. Superior St. in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood has been vacant since 2020 with future plans for demolition and redevelopment.
Warehouses at 1507 and 1515 N. First St. in the North End of Superior were destroyed by fire this morning. The Blatnik Bridge was temporarily closed due to smoke from the blaze.
The story of how the past century of fire phobia has really mucked up our forests isn’t new, but this new 16-min video with gorgeous photography tells it in a personal way. Featuring Vern Northrup of Fond du Lac, Damon Panek of Red Cliff, and Lane Johnson of the Cloquet Forestry Center.
The vacant Pastoret Terrace building at 129 E. First St., condemned since a 2010 fire, once again was ablaze on Sunday.
Postcard images of the St. Louis Hotel probably don’t do justice to its original splendor. The first of its two buildings went up in 1882 and was considered Duluth’s finest hotel. It was destroyed by fire on the morning of Jan. 13, 1893 and was replaced in 1895 by the Providence Building, which still stands at 332 W. Superior St.
The building shown in the postcard above was originally the Brighton Hotel, built next to the St. Louis in 1887. After the original St. Louis went up in smoke, the Brighton became the new St. Louis Hotel. The building was demolished in the early 1930s and replaced by the Medical Arts Building, which remains today at 324 W. Superior St.
This postcard shows the aftermath of the infamous Moose Lake Fire. Written in white across the image is the date of the fire, Oct. 12, 1918, though the photo was almost certainly shot in the days that followed, not during the blaze.
A fire broke out in downtown Grand Marais during the noon hour at the Crooked Spoon Cafe, 17 W. Wisconsin St. The blaze spread to two adjoining gift shops, Picnic and Pine and White Pine North. All three buildings were destroyed.
The Duluth Fire Department responded at 2:23 a.m. to a report of a structure fire at Adas Israel Congregation, a Jewish synagogue at 302 E. Third St.
One-hundred years ago today, Duluth was still reeling from the devastating fires of the previous week. The Duluth Herald ran a small article celebrating the efforts during the fire of a relatively new worker in Duluth: a female conductor on the Street Railway.
One hundred years ago, Northland Country Club was destroyed by the Cloquet Fire of 1918 — Minnesota’s deadliest natural disaster.
