Mural artists Kevin Ballecer, left, and Mela Nguyen are painting the exterior of Chicken n’ Whaaat?! on Central Avenue in West Duluth. The pair also painted murals for Burger Paradox on Superior Street. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske).
A family-owned restaurant group that helped revitalize Lincoln Park will expand outside the neighborhood for the first time with a new fast-casual chicken eatery attached to a West Duluth gas station.
MidCoast Catering owner Jonathan Reznick stands outside his Central Avenue buildings. Reznick is remodeling the property on the left to create a new event center called The Tasting Room. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske)
A popular Duluth food truck and catering business plans to expand operations later this summer when it opens a new event center adjacent to its West Duluth headquarters.
The Rambler food truck and MidCoast Catering owner Jonathan Reznick said he purchased the Michael Talarico law offices at 313 N. Central Ave. last May. Reznick connected the building to his catering kitchen next door and launched remodeling efforts this spring. The new space will be called the Tasting Room.
To mark the start of the 2024 baseball season we take a look back at the Big League Manager Baseball Game, which was made in Duluth beginning, as near as can be determined, 70 years ago in 1954.
The Duluth News Tribune reports an 80-unit apartment complex called the Residence is being planned on the former Holiday Stationstore location at 3401 Grand Ave. The 1.9-acre site is between the Wheeler Athletic Complex and the ore docks in West Duluth. Merge Urban Development Group, headquartered in Cedar Falls, Iowa, purchased the land from the Duluth Economic Development Authority in 2022.
1939 aerial photo from the UM
MnDOT’s John Bray wrote in The Will and the Way: “Approximately 700 homes were razed or moved in West Duluth” to make way for Interstate 35.
This undated postcard shows the Riverview Motel in West Duluth, which operated during the latter half of the 1900s and was replaced in the early 2000s by Westgate Townhomes.
The Alhambra Theater sits just to the east of the West Theatre on Central Avenue in West Duluth (Photos by Mark Nicklawske)
A long-lost vaudeville theater renovation gained ground this week when city officials authorized grant money to fund a business loan for the West Duluth entertainment district project.
The Duluth Economic Development Authority approved a $150,000 grant Jan. 25 to the city of Duluth 1200 Fund for restoration work at the Alhambra Theater, 321 N. Central Ave. The move allows the 1200 Fund to loan building owner Paladin Properties LLC a total of $200,000 for project completion.
Who are they? Where are they? When was this? The only clues come from a few scribbles on the back of the photo.
Duluth Urbex takes a peek inside an abandoned railway post-office car in West Duluth.
This photo was acquired at the Ellefson Estate Sale in the Upper Cody part of West Duluth in 2019. It shows a youth baseball team with players wearing different jerseys, suggesting perhaps it’s an all-star squad or the team had multiple sponsors. The sponsor names on the shirts are: Kelley Duluth, City Bottling, YOT (Young Old Timers), Gately’s, West Arrow Chevrolet, Moose 1478 … and one looks like it might be M&J Super Value (the bottom word is blocked by the players forearms). Two jerseys are plain white; those players have an M on their caps while the other players have caps with no lettering.
The writing on the back of the photo gives the biggest clue: “1962 State & Sectional Champs.” But the names of the players and coaches are lost to history unless a nerd or two step up and solve the mysteries.
Enter, a digital biweekly publication from the creators of Architecture MN magazine, takes a look at “a new prototype for building affordable houses on narrow lots in Duluth.”
This postcard depicts a scene in Fairmount Park where Kingsbury Creek flows under the Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Railway bridge in West Duluth. It’s not clear if the postcard predates the 1923 opening of the Duluth Zoo, now the Lake Superior Zoo, just downstream of the location shown. The bridge is still there, now part of the DWP multi-use trail.
One hundred years ago there were far fewer cars on Duluth’s streets, but it was still considered dangerous to sled down the city’s steep avenues. So Duluth Police Chief Warren E. Pugh surveyed the city and selected a few recommended avenues that posed “the least danger to life and limb,” according to the Duluth Herald of Nov. 22, 1921.
The bridge over Kingsbury Creek in West Duluth that was washed away in the Historic Summer Solstice Flood Disaster of 2012 has been replaced. The snowmobile route that runs across the bridge and snakes through the hillside south of Interstate 35, roughly from Keane Creek to Knowlton Creek, has also been restored after years of neglect. The lost ridgeline snowmobile route is part of the St. Louis River Corridor snowmobile trail system and links to the Hermantown trail system.
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division and the Hermantown Night Riders are hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the bridge on Dec. 17.
This postcard of the Central Motel was mailed Sept. 20, 1956 — 65 years ago today. The address, 24 N. Central Ave., is now greenspace across Main Street from Irving Park. The land is controlled by the idled Duluth paper mill, which was sold by Verso Corporation in May to ST Paper.
