Use our search function to find “This Day” entries for a specific day of the year. Spell out the month and include a comma after the date numeral, do not include a year, and place it all within quotation marks, like this: “May 1,”.
On this day in Duluth in 1965, American World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker spoke at the Hotel Duluth. Rickenbacker racked up 26 aerial victories during the First World War, the most by any American pilot, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In April 1965 he was an honored speaker at the…
Read More
On this day in Duluth in 1913, William Prince and W. E. McCuen both declared themselves the winner of the 1913 Duluth mayoral election. The race included two other candidates, Bernard Silberstein and Marcus Fay, but they made no claims of victory. McCuen demanded a recount. The election was held on April 1, but the…
Read More
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 More
On this day in 1930, Duluth’s Marshall H. Alworth died in Miami, Florida, where he had been hospitalized “for some time.” Alworth was born in Oneida County, New York, in 1846. He left home at age fourteen to work on the Great Lakes and eventually became a land-and-timber explorer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and…
Read More
On this day in Duluth in 1914, the first residents of Morgan Park—a “model city” (or “company town”) built by U. S. Steel to house some employees at the adjacent Minnesota Steel Plant—moved into their home. According to historian Arne Alanan, those first residents were “steel plant brick works superintendent John McLimans, his Canadian-born wife,…
Read More
On this day in Duluth in 1930, Duluth’s Aerial Lift Bridge was lifted for the first time to clear the canal so that a vessel could pass through it. The vessel was the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ Essayons, which had been serving the port since 1908. The first large ore carrier to pass under the…
Read More
On this day in Duluth in 1927, dignitaries broke ground to ceremonially begin the construction of Duluth’s new City Hall, first envisioned by architect Daniel Burnham in 1909. It was a simple affair. City officials broke ground along with Thomas J. Shefchik, the building’s architect, and George Lounsberry, who won the building contract. Lounsberry had…
Read More
On this Day in Duluth in 1926, Mayor Sam Snively and Park Superintendent F. Rodney Paine announced plans for the development of Lake Shore Park. Snively and Paine offered a new variation on the park’s expansion. They proposed a breakwater that would extend five hundred feet into the lake from the back of the Duluth…
Read More
On this day in Duluth in 1890, Duluth’s Board of Park Commissions passed a resolution authorizing the appointment of park policeman. President William K. Rogers explained there was a “necessity for police supervision in the several parks and along the connecting driveway to prevent the deposit of offal and garbage and injury to trees and…
Read More
On this day in 1710, Duluth namesake Daniel Greysolon Sieur du Lhut died of complications from gout in Montreal, New France. du Lhut had been born in the French village of Saint-Germain-Laval, near Lyons, in 1639 and served in King Louis XIV’s Royale Guard before traveling to what would become Canada. Biographer’s suggest that in…
Read More