Search results for: brewery
February 9, 1883: Duluth newspaper thanks local brewery for keg of beer
On this day in Duluth in 1883, the the Duluth Daily Tribune wrote that its staff was “indebted to M. Fink for a sample keg of his new beer, made by a brewer he lately engaged in Milwaukee and they pronounced it excellent.” “M. Fink” was Michael Fink, who came to Duluth in the mid…
Read MoreJanuary 6, 1881: C. D. Kreimer advertises “For Sale Cheap: Brewery at Duluth”
On this day in Duluth in 1881, merchant Charles D. Kreimer advertised in the Lake Superior News that he was selling a “brewery at Duluth” and that the price was “cheap.” Kreimer’s brothers August and Paul established the brewery in 1872, when Duluth’s future looked very bright. The precise location is unknown, as early newspaper…
Read MoreDecember 31, 1914: Fitger’s original Brewery Saloon closes
On this day in Duluth in 1914, Fitger’s Brewery Saloon served its last beer. The saloon had opened in 1882 inside what was then Mike Fink’s Lake Superior Brewery between Sixth and Seventh Avenues East along Superior Street. August Fitger had recently become the outfit’s brewmaster and within three years he and Percy Anneke would…
Read MoreDecember 4, 1902: Superior’s Northern Brewery announces major expansion
On this day across the bay in 1902, Northern Brewing Company manager L. A. Erhart announced that the company would be expanding its beer brewing facility. When all the work was done, the brewery promised, its brewing capacity would be doubled and “it will be among the best in this section of the country.” The…
Read MoreJuly 10, 1869: Brewery owner buys building to open saloon
On this day in Duluth in 1869, Nicholas Decker purchased property at 31 West Superior Street to open a saloon to sell his beer. In the mid 1860s Decker had purchased Duluth’s first brewery, built on Washington Avenue along Brewery Creek in 1859 by Gottlieb Busch andand financed by Sidney Luce (later Duluth’s third mayor).…
Read MoreNovember 20, 1906: New brewery announced for Duluth
On this day in Duluth in 1906, local newspapers reported that a new brewery would be constructed in West Duluth. The People’s Brewery was established by Duluthians Patrick Doran (president), Frank G. Sanstedt (vice president), J. B. Dunphy (secretary), Martin Smith (treasurer) and directors C. F. W. Korth, Mike Gleason, Thomas Doyle, and Charles M.…
Read MoreSeptember 19, 1972: Last day for employees of Fitger’s Brewery
On this day in Duluth in 1972, bottle house employees at Fitger’s Brewery reported for work for the last time. John Ferris, who had become president of the brewery in 1969, had been dealing with the State of Minnesota regarding the two significant situations that arose before his involvement in Fitger’s. The brewery was supposed…
Read MoreApril 3, 1906: Duluth brewery announces major expansion
On this day in Duluth in 1906, the Duluth News Tribune heralded a major expansion of the Duluth Brewing & Malting brewery complex in the West End at a cost of a $45,000, about $1.2 million in 2018. Chicago brewery architect Bernard Barthels, whose work include St. Paul’s Schmidt Brewery, designed a two-story addition to…
Read MoreJanuary 12, 1920: Fire destroys Fitger’s original brewery
On this day in Duluth in 1920, the oldest portion of the Fitger’s Brewery—the original 1881 Lake Superior Brewery building constructed by then owner Mike Fink—was destroyed by fire. The old structure stood between the brew house and the office/bottling facility—two massive stone and brick buildings that were left unharmed by the flames. The building’s…
Read MoreHistoric Duluth brewery founded by the son of a suffragist
[Note: This article was originally published by the Duluth News Tribune on March 17, 2021 as part of its “Northlandia” series and is adapted from the book Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better: The Historic Breweries of Duluth and Superior.] In keeping with the celebration of Women’s History Month, March’s Northlandia explains Duluth’s connection to a…
Read MoreMarch 23, 1878: Minnesotian reports Duluth brewer loses 180 kegs of beer
On this day in Duluth in 1878, the Duluth Minnesotian reported that brewer Mike Fink lost 180 kegs of beer in Brewery Creek: “The addition containing the beer cooler of Mr. Fink, in which was about 180 kegs of beer, was undermined by Brewery Creek, and on Wednesday night fell down, spilling the beer into…
Read MoreFebruary 19, 1898: Superior’s Klinkert Brewing Reorganized as Northern Brewing
On this day across the bay in 1898, the Superior Inter-Ocean declared that “The old Klinkert Brewing Company has been entirely reorganized under the name Northern Brewing Company.” Founders John Klinkert and Louis Rueping had established Klinkert Brewing in 1890 after closing down their Red River Valley Brewing Company in Fargo after North Dakota became…
Read MoreA Selection of Publications Produced by
Isle Royale: A Photographer’s Circumnavigation 1967–1987 Tom Haas spent 20 years kayaking along Isle Royale’s shores and smaller barrier islands and hiking its mainland, hauling along a 12-pound, large-format camera and an 8-pound tripod. Throughout that meandering circumnavigation he captured over 3,000 images of the islands’ harbors and bays, rocky shorelines, abundant flora, historic fisheries,…
Read MoreArchive Dive: Superior’s Northern Brewing Company
Superior’s Northern Brewing Company grew out of the family-operated Klinkert Brewing Company and thrived in the 1890s and early 1900s with its flagship Blue Label Beer. The brewery was busted during Prohibition for making strong bear instead of near beer, but got back on its feet in the 1930s with Northern Select and later Vic’s…
Read MoreArchive Dive: People’s Brewing Co.
West Duluth‘s People‘s Brewing Company was founded by Duluth liquor retailers so they could increase their profits by NOT selling beer made by other breweries. The business model was tossed out when Prohibition became law. The brewery did not survive the 1920s, but was reinvigorated in 1933 and went on to make beloved brands such…
Read MoreArchive Dive: The West Superior Brewing Company
This week’s dive into the ZCP archive tells the story of Superior’s West Duluth Brewing Company, created in 1889 by Bernard Schwanekamp and his very wealthy brother-in-law, Joseph Hennes. The brewery initially thrived, then struggled in the wake of the panic of 1893 and later became part of the Northern Brewing Company. From our book.…
Read MoreArchive Dive: Duluth Brewing & Malting
This week’s dive into the ZCP archive tells the story of Duluth’s “Moose Brewery,” Duluth Brewing & Malting, a West End fixture from 1896 to 1966. DB&M produced such beloved brands as Rex Beer and Love-It Soda during Prohibition—until Fitger’s purchased both brands at the start of the Great Depression. After Prohibition, DB&M produced Karlsbrau,…
Read MoreJune 27, 1880: Murder at the Tischer Farm beer garden
On this day outside Duluth in 1880, Edward Brennan was killed by Herman Oppel at the Tischer Farm beer garden. John Tischer, whose parents owned the farm located along the Lake Superior Shore immediately east of the creek named for them, had obtained a Sunday beer license from St. Louis County, as the farm was…
Read MoreJune 21, 1864: Death of Robert Miller, namesake of Miller Creek
On this day in 1864, Pennsylvania native Robert Miller, namesake of Duluth’s Miller Creek, died in Vicksburg, Tennessee. According to Duluth historian Heidi Bakk-Hansen, Miller was counted in Duluth’s first official census in 1860. He was 42 years old, lived alone, and reported his property—which was between Miller Creek and Coffey Creek—as worth $1,000 (about…
Read MoreArchive Dive: The Fitger Brewing Co.
This week’s dive into the ZCP archive tells the story of Duluth’s longest-lived manufacturer: The Fitger Brewing Company. Discover how brewmaster August Fitger and his business partner Percy Anneke took a modest brewery on the Lake Superior shore and turned it into a regional powerhouse that dominated northern Wisconsin and Northern Minnesota for decades until…
Read MoreArchive Dive: South Shore Breweries
This week’s dive into the ZCP archive takes us along Lake Superior‘s Wisconsin South Shore to revisit the historic breweries of Ashland and Washburn. The story involves one notorious brewery owner who was arrested for arrest for “assault with attempt to kill.” after slashing another man’s jugular vein. From our book Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better:…
Read MoreApril 1 , 1934: John Dillinger stops in Esko to have his car fixed
On this day outside of Duluth in 1934, John Dillinger reportedly stopped in a gas station in Esko on his way to the Twin Cities. According to the book Esko’s Corner, the story begins the previous year: “In June 1933, William Hamm Jr., president of Hamm’s Brewery in St. Paul, was kidnapped and held for…
Read MoreArchive Dive: Breweries of Minnesota‘s Iron Range
This week’s dive into the ZCP archive takes us north of Duluth to Minnesota’s Vermilion and Mesabi Iron Ranges to examine the two commercial breweries that operated on the Range prior to Prohibition. It’s a brief but interesting tale, including an effort by publicly disgraced Duluth alderman Mike Fink—who started the Lake Superior Brewery and…
Read MoreFebruary 14, 1851: Birth of Duluth artist Feodor Von Luerzer
On this day in 1851, future Duluthian and artist Feodor Von Luerzer was born in the Austrian Province of Salzburg. According to biographer David Ouse, Von Luerzer immigrated to the United States about 1886, finding work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as a panorama painter. In 1889 he moved to Duluth and set up a studio where…
Read MoreArchive Dive: The Pioneer Breweries of the Twin Ports
This week we dive into the archive to pull up some history on the pioneer brewers of Duluth and Superior. Brewing began in both communities in 1859, providing both a potent potable and jobs, as at the time the entire Head of the Lakes was struggling financially in the wake of the Panic of 1857.…
Read MoreJanuary 13, 1920: Death of Marion Fitger
On this day in Duluth in 1920, Marion Fitger—the youngest child of brewer August Fitger and his wife Clara—died suddenly at the family home at 629 East Sixth Street, where she had been born in 1893. She had been ill for just a few days, suffering from tubercular meningitis. Marion Fitger, according to the Duluth…
Read MoreDecember 3, 1865: The beginning of the Vermilion Gold Rush
On this day in 1865, the Minnesota Gold Mining Company was established, marking the start of the Vermilion Gold Rush. Earlier that summer, geologist Henry Ames traveled to Lake Vermilion to look for valuable minerals. By the time he arrived in St. Paul on October 28, 1865, rumors were already swirling about a valuable gold…
Read MoreAugust 19: Death of Duluth artist Feodor Von Luerzer
On this day in 1913, former Duluth resident Feodor Von Luerzer died in Spokane, Washington. Von Luerzer was born on February 14, 1851, in the Austrian Province of Salzburg. Following several years of service in the Austrian military he enrolled in the Vienna Art Academy to study painting. He immigrated to the United States about…
Read MoreJune 16, 1857: Sidney Luce arrives at the Head of the Lakes
On this day across the bay in 1857, Sidney Luce arrived with his family. Luce moved his family to Superior and soon after to what would become the town of Portland, where he served as the registrar of the United States Land Office, then located up the shore at Buchanan near Stoney Point. When the…
Read MoreApril 6, 1933: Prohibition partially ends—and Fitger’s is ready.
On this day in Duluth (and throughout the U.S.) in 1933, Prohibition was partially ended—and Duluth’s Fitger Brewing Company was ready for the future. Weeks earlier President Roosevelt signed the “Beer Bill,” allowing for the brewing and sales of beer containing no more than 3.2 percent alcohol. State and municipalities quickly followed suit. Fitger’s had…
Read MoreFitger Brewing Company
On November 11, 1882, Michael Fink hired August Fitger as the brewmaster of his 1881 Lake Superior Brewery along Superior Street at Sixth Avenue East. Only six months after Fink hired Fitger, the new brewer purchased half of Fink’s Lake Superior Brewery. Fitger’s friend Percy Anneke, a salesman for Milwaukee bottling company Voechting, Shape &…
Read MoreDuluth Brewing & Malting
Reiner Hoch (pronounced “hoke”) fell into brewing when his parents settled in Milwaukee after emigrating from Prussia, Germany, where he was born in 1852. Two of Hoch’s brothers followed the same path, as did Carl Meeske (pronounced “mess-key”), born in Germany in 1850—and two of Meeske’s brothers, Otto and Gustav. Hoch and the Meeske brothers…
Read MorePeople’s Brewing Company
In October 1906 the Duluth News Tribune reported that a third brewery was coming to the Zenith City, and its investors were looking at property in West Duluth. It was to be called People’s Brewing Company. Over the decades many have come to believe that the brewery was born of socialist ideas brought to Northeastern…
Read MoreNorthern Brewing Company
The Superior Inland Ocean newspaper announced on February 19, 1898, that “the old Klinkert Brewing Company has been entirely reorganized under the name Northern Brewing Company. The incorporators are L. Rueping, Frederick Rueping, Fred J. Rueping and L. A. Erhart. The capital stock is $150,000. Mr. Erhart is the manager and is now living in…
Read MoreThe Pioneer Breweries of Duluth & Superior
Sidney Luce never intended to live in Duluth. In fact, the city didn’t even exist when he first arrived at the Head of the Lakes in 1856. He had traveled from Ohio to Superior, Wisconsin, to look after some investments “without any intention of remaining any length of time,” according to Luce himself. Luce ended…
Read MoreThe Klinkert Brewing Co.
When North Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, its counties voted to prohibit the sale and manufacture of alcohol, which forced Fargo’s Red River Valley Brewing Company, owned by John Klinkert and Louis Rueping, to look for a new home. In 1865, when he was just sixteen years old, Klinkert had emigrated from…
Read MoreThe West Superior Brewing Co.
In 1889 the Village of Superior, Wisconsin, merged with the Village of West Superior, established in 1883 by General John Hammond This marriage of the two communities created the City of Superior, with a local population of over thirteen thousand. It also brought brewing back to Duluth’s rival across the bay. Superior, Wisconsin’s first modern…
Read MoreHistoric Wisconsin South Shore Breweries (1881–1937)
Besides those breweries of Superior, other outfits made beer along the Wisconsin South Shore of Lake Superior in Washburn and Ashland before and briefly after Prohibition. The first brewery on Lake Superior’s South Shore was likely in the township of Bay City, within the city limits of today’s Ashland. Brewing historian Doug Hoverson, author of…
Read MoreHistoric Minnesota Iron Range Breweries
After Michael Fink sold his brewery in 1885, he remained “retired” until becoming a health inspector in 1888. in October 1891, newspapers announced he had purchased five acres of land on the intending to build a brewery. Investors included his wife, Callie, and majority stockholder Philip M. Graff, a lumber baron. Charlie “Spike” Unden, nephew…
Read MoreIndustrial Decline (1956–1993)
In August 1956 Duluth’s Armory hosted the largest funeral in the city’s history, that of Albert Woolson, the Civil War’s last surviving Union or Confederate soldier, who died at age 109. Earlier that year Duluthians voted nearly two to one to toss out the commission system. Months later they elected a new city council, which…
Read MoreA City Reborn (1885–1887)
A relative newcomer, Vermont lumberman Horace Moore replaced Ensign as mayor in 1885. Moore ran unopposed—and reluctantly, pressed into his nomination by petition. The Duluth News Tribune reported that Moore’s priorities would be “the introduction of a sewer system, the further improvement of our streets, [and] gas and water.” Hardly glamorous, Moore’s goals signaled a…
Read MoreUp from the Ashes (1877–1884)
As part of its plan to eliminate the city’s debt, Duluth’s common council asked district court judge Ozora P. Stearns to create legislation to reorganize Duluth as a village and compound its debt, reissuing its bonds at twenty-five cents on the dollar. To ensure the village remained motivated to pay off the remainder, its borders…
Read MoreA City is Born (1869–1870)
By May 1869 Jay Cooke’s agents had arrived in Duluth and began spending his money as well as that of his associate E. W. Clark. Those agents—George Sargent, George C. Stone, and Luther Mendenhall—would become prominent figures in Duluth’s history. They opened the town’s first bank, which everyone called Jay Cooke’s Bank. They built one…
Read MoreRailroad Dreams (1866–1868)
Following the war some people returned to the Head of the Lakes while others did not. Even Reverend Ely had given up on Oneota. In 1865 Joshua Culver returned as a full colonel and built a sawmill on Minnesota Point. There were then just 294 people in all of St. Louis County—56 in Fond du…
Read MorePanic and War (1857–1865)
By the time the copper speculators stopped speculating, about 2500 people lived in Superior and nearly 1500 more had begun building homesteads from Endion to Oneota. Then came the Panic. In the 1850s, despite increasing development, the US economy was declining. Europe, home to many investors financing America’s growth, also suffered from unstable economies. Banks…
Read MoreFebruary 8, 1910: Beer wagon goes through Ice on St. Louis River
On this day in Duluth in 1910, former Third Ward alderman Maurice McGinnis was driving a rig for Superior’s Northern Brewery over the frozen St. Louis River when the ice gave way. Horses, wagon, driver, and beer all plunged into the river. McGinniss managed to pull himself out of the frigid waters and “suffered no…
Read MoreHow Duluth’s creeks got their names
NOTE: This was originally published as a “Northlandia’ column in the Duluth News Tribune on August 5, 2020 and was updated in January, 2021. Original posting here. Special thanks to Heidi Bakk-Hansen, who previous work for Zenith City Online tracing local place names (linked to below) has greatly informed this article.] Cathy P. of…
Read MoreDuluth’s First Boom—and Bust: 1856–1868
The following story—adapted from Tony Dierckins’s Duluth: An Urban Biography (Minnesota Historical Society Press, April 2020)—was first published in the Duluth News Tribune in February, 2020, in celebration of Duluth’s 150th anniversary of first becoming a city on March 6, 1870. ___________ As 1856 began perhaps no other region in the U.S. stood as poised…
Read MoreBeer, or Down Comes the House!
In mid-January 1884 a group of Duluthians of German extraction objected to the marriage of “the ancient and much married” Peter Arimond, a seventy-one-year-old five-time widower, to a twenty-four-year-old German immigrant named Louise, who lived in St. Paul. It would take beer made with pure Lake Superior water to calm a raging mob. Arimond, also…
Read MoreThe Tunnels of Subterranean Duluth
The great cities of Europe are often known for what goes on below their streets as above—the London Underground, the vaults of Edinburgh, the catacombs of Paris. Duluth has its own subterranean features, though they are much less on the minds of its people. Many of Duluth’s downtown buildings are connected below street level, and…
Read MoreThe Expansion of I-35 Through Duluth
First planned in the late 1950s, the expansion of Interstate 35 through Duluth took thirty years. Plans changed many times, and while the effort advanced the city’s urban renewal, portions of it were highly controversial, as Duluth lost not just its outdated industrial complexes but entire neighborhoods as well. Starting in the 1960s, the city…
Read MoreDuluth Heights
Much of the damage caused by the historic 2012 Duluth flood was caused by blockages in subterranean culverts where Duluthians had long ago forced creeks underground. One such creek was Brewery Creek, which forced itself to the surface along the path of Seventh Avenue East. Brewery Creek, along with Buckinghams Creek, both served to drain…
Read MoreKitchi Gammi Club
831 East Superior Street | Architect: Bertram Goodhue | b. 1912 | Extant Although it is the home of a private organization, where membership or invitation is required for entry, most Duluthians are quite familiar with the Kitchi Gammi Club, the Jacobean Revival building that has stood at 831 Superior Street for the past 100…
Read MoreThe Hotel Rex, aka the Seaway
2001 W. Superior Street | Wangenstein & Gilliuson | Built 1913 | Lost 2022 [Note: Special thanks to Duluth historian Gina Temple Rhodes for additional research that helped us update this story in 2021] In 1913, the Gopher Realty Company, a subdivision of Duluth Brewing & Malting, finished construction of a 50-room, three-story hotel at…
Read MoreThe Pickwick
508 E. Superior Street | Architect: Anthony Puck | Built: 1914 | Extant The original Lake Superior Brewery, built by Mike Fink in 1881, housed a tap room simply called the Brewery Saloon and, sometimes, “rathskeller.” It was likely first ran by John Tischer, who applied for a license to operate a billiard table in the facility shortly…
Read MoreDuluth’s Brownstone Industry
Credited with setting up Duluth’s first sawmill in Oneota in 1856, Henry Wheeler also quarried the first brownstone from Fond du Lac, using the stone as the foundation of his sawmill’s boiler/engine house, and some Fond du Lac brownstone was used in the Minnesota Point Lighthouse in 1858. But as an industry, brownstone quarrying would…
Read MoreDuluth’s Metal Fabricators
Duluth’s earliest metal-fabricating shop was a modest affair that built rail cars for Jay Cooke’s Great Northern Railway. In February 1873 J. B. Culver, Luther Mendenhall, J. D. Ray, J. C. Hunter, and W. W. Spalding formed the Duluth Blast Furnace Company and built him the city’s first blast furnace — which allowed a foundry to…
Read MoreMiscellaneous Manufacturers
Since four unemployed young men opened a brewery in the town of Portland in 1859, Duluth has been the home of a variety of manufacturing concerns. From Aroma Coffee to Zenith Broom, Duluthians tried their hand at just about everything. The Barsness Candy Company was the largest confectioner north of the Twin Cities, and the…
Read MoreA Killer of a Beer Garden
As one might imagine, where beer goes drunkenness often follows, and that can lead to trouble. Subsequently, Duluth’s pioneer brewers often found themselves at the center of conflict. In fact, the Zenith City’s first murder—the 1869 stabbing of George Northrup—resulted from an argument that started in brewery owner Nicholas Decker’s Superior Street saloon. Since the…
Read MoreDuluth’s First Murder
In the summer of 1869, Duluth was a dirty town of mud and stumps, tarpaper shacks, saloons, and treacherous plank sidewalks. The Fisheaters who’d survived the earliest bust were on their way up again, sure that this time the world would see the Zenith City’s full potential as the center of North American commerce. The…
Read MoreA Week in Duluth
The following is an excerpt from an article written by John Townsend Trowbridge describing his visit to Duluth in August, 1869, published in the Atlantic Monthly in May 1870. Trowbridge and his party had traveled from St. Paul to the village of Fond du Lac (now a Duluth neighborhood) using the partially built Lake Superior…
Read MoreFalse Gold Rush Uncovers Iron Ore
According to legend, in the summer of 1865, a slow-motion birch bark canoe chase played out on the rivers and in the woods near Lake Vermilion. One group was led by a geologist named Henry H. Eames, who had recently staggered into Duluth with a nail keg full of iron ore specimens and big talk…
Read MoreProhibition in Duluth (1916–1933)
If you ask most people today if they’d have voted for Prohibition, they would likely answer with an incredulous, “No! Of course not!” Or, “It was a baffling paroxysm of governmental insanity pushed by religious nuts—you can’t legislate morality!” Looking back from our 21st-century perspective, Prohibition was an era of terrifying mob violence—Al Capone, the…
Read MoreTurner Hall
601 East Third Street | Oliver Traphagen | b. 1888 | Lost: 1890 601 East Third Street | William Hunt | b. 1891 | Lost: ca. 1965 In Germany in 1811, a group of men founded a society that encouraged physical exercise, especially gymnastics, which they believed would instill a sense of patriotism, citizenship and…
Read MoreLost Duluth Restaurants
Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of restaurants have come and gone in Duluth. We’d be remiss without mentioning at least a few. Old postcards remind us of Duluth’s many eateries from the 1920s and 30s: the Atlas Tea Room at 124 East First Street, Lake View Tea and Dining Room at 728 East Superior Street, Jack’s Café at 220…
Read MoreA Brief History of Superior, Wisconsin
While the French referred to Lake Superior’s far-western end as Fond du Lac (Bottom of the Lake), English-speaking explorers had an entirely different perspective. They called it the Head of the Lakes, a phrase later used to collectively identify Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin. The position of those communities on the opposite banks of the St.…
Read MoreDuluth’s Park System, 1856 – 1956
Rock, water, and ice: These forces of nature inspired Duluth’s park system. Eleven thousand years ago a massive layer of glacial ice melted away slowly as the climate warmed. Meltwater collected in the huge basin we now call Lake Superior. Much deeper than today, the shoreline of this lake stood at an elevation of about…
Read MoreThe Parks of Minnesota Point
In 1900 the Duluth News Tribune poetically described Minnesota Point as “a penciled eyebrow on the face of nature.” Since the establishment of Superior, Wisconsin, and the townsites that make up modern Duluth, residents of both cities, along with thousands of visitors, have taken advantage of this narrow sandbar as a delightful summer resort—a place to picnic,…
Read MoreForest Hill Cemetery (1879–1890)
As early as 1849, small pioneer cemeteries could be found scattered throughout the area that is now Duluth. By 1870, the year Duluth first became a city, demand surfaced for a truly large cemetery within city limits. In October 1872 the Duluth Cemetery Association organized to find an appropriate site, electing James D. Ray as…
Read MoreOliver G. Traphagen
Oliver Greene Traphagen (1854–1932), a native of Tarrytown, New York, moved to St. Paul about 1880 and worked as a carpenter for prominent architect George Wirth. By 1882 Traphagen moved to Duluth to supervise construction of buildings designed by Wirth, including the Grand Opera House and the Metropolitan Block. Wirth and Traphagen became business partners…
Read MoreJohn J. Wangenstein
John J. Wangenstein was born in Valdres, Norway, in 1858 and studied in Trondheim before coming to Duluth in 1883 where he established a private architectural firm six years later. He partnered with William E. Baillie from 1892 to 1895, but for the most part worked independently. During his prolific career Wangenstein designed numerous commercial,…
Read MoreFeodor von Luerzer
Unless you are an art historian, you likely don’t know the name Feodor von Luerzer. Don’t feel bad—most art historians probably aren’t too familiar with his work either. But you may be already familiar with his work, especially if you’ve been to Duluth’s oldest operating restaurant. The Austrian-born landscape painter lived in the Zenith City…
Read MoreNicholas & Benjamin Decker
Duluth’s Decker Road is named for Benjamin Decker, who had a market farm and greenhouse on the road in the early part of the 20th century. The road was originally called “the Decker road”—short for “the road to Decker’s farm”—and it was built in 1915 as a connector for rural Duluth market gardeners to get…
Read MoreSidney Luce
Duluth pioneer Sidney Luce (pronounced “loose”) was born in Kingsville, Ohio, on September 19, 1819. Kingsville is a short distant from Ashtabula, from which many of Duluth’s early settlers hailed. He spent most of his early life in Kingsville before taking a job with the county auditor’s office in Jefferson, Ohio. There he met and…
Read MoreThe Lewis & Hepzibah Merritt Family
Between 1913 and 1925, eight Duluth parks were established and named in honor of members of the Lewis and Hepzibah Merritt family, true pioneers of the Zenith City. Family patriarch Lewis Howell Merritt (1809 to 1880) and his son Napolean arrived in Superior, Wisconsin, on July 3, 1855, having travelled from the family home in…
Read MoreUrs & Elizabeth Tischer Family
When you study place names, and look for their origins, a truism becomes obvious that may not have occurred to you before. When a new people come to a place and begin to name the landmarks around them, they begin with the most important land features—usually bodies of water and the places around them. Which…
Read MoreNaturally Brewed, Naturally Better
Bundle & Save: ____________________________________ Beer brewing was the first industry at the Head of the Lakes, started in 1859 by German and French immigrants. Pioneer breweries bounced between economic booms and busts until 1885, when August Fitger took charge of the Lake Superior Brewery. Four major breweries—Fitger’s, Duluth Brewing & Malting, Northern, and People’s—served Duluth…
Read More