Postcards Posts

Duluth Air Line: Taking in the sight in 1908

Duluth Air Line 1908

What in tarnation is going on here? Well, this postcard image is clearly a photo studio gag and not a snapshot of two handsome fellows in a hot air balloon over Duluth.

Postcards from the Arrowhead Bridge

New Arrowhead Bridge 1927b

Arrowhead Bridge in the 1940s

The Arrowhead Bridge connected West Duluth to Superior’s Billing’s Park neighborhood across the St. Louis River for 57 years. Built by the Arrowhead Bridge Co., it opened on March 15, 1927. The company charged a toll to cross the bridge until 1963, when Minnesota and Wisconsin state officials paid $200,000 to make it a toll-free public bridge.

The Arrowhead Bridge was dismantled in 1985 after the opening of the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge.

In case anyone is wondering how we do things around here …

How we do things at Duluth

Postcards from Duluth’s ore docks

Duluth, MN, Mammoth Ore Docks, Aeroplane View, c1920s

Duluth’s first ore dock was built in 1893, just east of 34th Avenue West. The Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway built several docks there for loading iron ore from the Iron Range for shipment to steel plants in the East. The first five docks were built of wood, which was gradually replaced by steel and concrete.

Postcards from Congdon Park

Congdon Bridge Postcard One Cent

Leaving Duluth: Feel free to write your own caption

Leaving Duluth postcard image circa 1910

“Leaving Duluth” postcard image from Arcade studio, roughly a century ago.

Balloon View of Duluth/Superior Harbor

Balloon View Harbor, River and Natural Breakwater; Duluth to Left, Superior to Right

This postcard, captioned “Balloon View Harbor, River and Natural Breakwater; Duluth to Left, Superior to Right” raises a few questions. Perhaps the most important one is, how did that tree on the left edge get so tall?

Postcards from Duluth’s Lester Park

Big Falls at Lester Park Brook Trout Fishing - Lester River

Mystery Photo #16: Holm’s Kaffe Stuga

Holm's Kaffe - Fond du Lac

This photo is labeled “Holm’s Kaffe Stuga, Fond du Lac, Duluth, Minn.” From that we can assume the Fond du Lac neighborhood had a Swedish coffee cottage at some time in history. When? Where? And who is this Holm character?

Duluth Mystery Photo #14: Ice Monument

The caption on this postcard reads: “Ice Formation on Fountain at Lakewood, Duluth, Minn.” There was a big fountain in Lakewood Township?

Duluth-Superior Harbor Circa 1975

Duluth-Superior-Harbor-Circa-1975

This postcard image was published by Gallagher’s Studio of Photography. My great aunt Jennie mailed it to me in 1975, noting she had a “wonderful ride on a boat called the Vista Queen.” She specified that “there were 147 people on the boat” and “the trip took two hours.”

I was 3 years old at the time, and my family was living in Albuquerque, N.M., with plans to move back to Duluth. Jennie ended her message with, “Little Paul, can you count all the boats in the picture on this card?”

Well, I’m 40 years old now and I got the answer wrong. I counted 12 boats. How many do you see, little readers?

The printed info on the postcard reads: “Duluth-Superior Harbor: Foreign vessels are shown at the Arthur M. Clure Public Marine Terminal. The Duluth-Superior Harbor is the westerly terminus of the St. Lawrence Seaway.”

And that concludes today’s Show and Tell.

Vintage Duluth/Superior Flickr Pool

For those of you interested in vintage images of the Twin Ports, I thought I’d share a Flickr group I started to showcase all the vintage postcards, photos, maps and images stored on that site. The vintage postcards from Superior are my personal favorites. Please peruse, join the group and add any images you might have — I’d love to see the pool grow!

Awesome Duluth Postcard Site

I’m sure this has been posted before on here, but this is a site I found a few years back. It’s a mind blowing collection of old Duluth postcards:

Duluth-MN-USA.com

Bathing in Fairmount Park’s Boys’ Pool

FremontParkFront

This old postcard was sent 100 years ago today. Someone named Mabelle mailed it to Mrs. W. F. Smith of Minong, Wis. It was postmarked in Duluth, Minn., July 16, 1910, 3 p.m.