I was driving on First Street near Point of Rocks last week and noticed some ruins on the vacant land about forty feet above the street. It looks like it could have been a fort. Do you know what it was?
— Drew Anderson, Minnesota Avenue, Duluth.
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Thanks for the question, Drew. You’re not the first person who thought the ruins might be those of an old fort—in fact, the structure’s nickname was once “Fort Corcoran.”
The ruins, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues west, are the remains of Duluth’s first water reservoir, built over a natural spring from which eight barrels of water flowed every day.
The reservoir was constructed in 1884 by the privately owned Duluth Gas & Water Company when the area was known as “The Glenn” and populated mostly by French immigrants, who built St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church at Eleventh Avenue West and Superior Street in 1885. (The church later became the first St. Peter’s Catholic Church after French Catholics built a second Jean Baptiste in the West End and the Glenn became known as the lower portion of “Little Italy;” it was torn down in 1925 when parishioners built a new, stone St. Peter’s at 818 West Third Street.)
In 1898 the city acquired the reservoir as it began constructing its present water system, which draws fresh water from Lake Superior at the Lakewood Pumping Station and delivers it to reservoirs throughout much of the city. (The far western portion of the city is supplied through artesian wells.) The city did not incorporate the 1884 facility into its new system. A Duluth News Tribune story on August 12, 1940, states that “there is no written information available concerning the use of the reservoir.” At one point the facility was used to grow mushrooms, an enterprise that failed. Its original flat wooden roof reportedly was destroyed by fire in 1912.
In 1918 the property was sold to J. M. Corcoran and became known to locals as “Fort Corcoran.” Corcoran had an opening cut in the reservoir for a doorway and built a set of wooden stairs leading to it from First Street. Workers had to burrow through more than 14 feet of solid rock to make the entrance.
Corcoran, from Hibbing, described himself as “a dealer in everything that lives” and planned to convert the reservoir into a “miniature Noah’s Ark” where he would breed birds, “fancy dogs,” pedigree cats and “many other things that purr, bark, scratch or bite.” He planned to install a roller rink on the second floor—after he built the second floor—but also thought he could turn that space into “thirty-two commodious rooms for lodgers.” He would locate the kitchen above the spring so the structure would have its own water supply. He also considered plans to add a third floor for lodgers.
Unfortunately, I could find no further information on the reservoir in time for this publication, so we don’t know if Corcoran’s plans panned out for him, nor is it known when the wooden additions Corcoran made to the structure were removed.
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This is such a good idea! Very enjoyable read. I watched Lost Duluth last night on Channel 8. In a little while I will send in my pledge to receive the book and video. Tony, you may remember making a presentation on preparing memoir manucripts for publication at my University for Seniors class some years ago. In 1999, I enrolled in a class on Duluth History led by Coopen Johnson. My daughter said, “Mom, you ought to tape that class. Those are the voices of the elders.” She was right and some of them are silent now. At the first class, I asked if there were any objections to my taping it and there were none, so I recorded most of the 16 hours. Last summer I made a typed script of the cassettes, identifying the voices as best I could. Then I had my son James of Far Q Productions make four CD copies of the cassettes. I gave one to Coopen’s family, kept one, donated one to the St. Louis county archives at UMD, and have one I intend to donate to the Duluth Public Library soon. There is a fascinating account by an aerial lift bridge operator, architectural highlights from Dick Whiteman, anecdotes about little Bobby Dylan’s father bringing him to the Jewish baseball league, and the huge interest in prize fighting in Duluth in the early 20th century. And more, more, more, with the voices of the elders, laughing and enjoying the stories of others. It includes growing up in Canal Park and walking past all the prostitutes sitting on their porches. So, if these would be interesting to you, you know several places where you can find them. I am an outlander,born in Iowa, but I was the trophy bride of a man 22 years older than myself who grew up on Park Point and was a great story teller about his native city. I came here in 1956 for a summer job and it was the Minnesota centennial summer with Albert Woolson in the parade that passed outside Kewpie’s Cafe on Superior Street.