On this day in both 1916 and 1919, headlines concerned a proposed bridge over Chester Creek. Today in 1916 the Munger Improvement Association announced plans to replace a wooden bridge over the creek to better serve automobiles and and extend the streetcar line. The proposed bridge would be 250 feet long, stretching between Ninth Street…

On this day in Duluth in 1928, the Duluth’s city council voted 3 to 2 to award the Kansas City Bridge Company the contact to convert Duluth’s 1905 aerial transfer bridge into an aerial lift bridge. The Duluth News Tribune called the 3–2 vote “expected” and applauded the council as performing “a good act Monday…

On this day in Duluth in 1920, “hundreds” of Duluthians lined up outside the Palladio Building at 401–403 West Superior Street to look at alleged bullet holes thought to have been made by bullets fired at Dr. Carl Hoppman, who had been shot to death in front of the building two days earlier. According to…

On this day in Duluth in 1905, the Aerial Transfer Bridge made its first crossing with, according to the Duluth News Tribune a “load of human freight.” City Engineer Thomas McGilvray invited two hundred people to witness the ferry car’s first crossing. He included local dignitaries such as Mayor Marcus Cullum, Common Council President Roland…

On this day in Duluth in 1888, four people were killed and 13 others injured in a dynamite explosion on Fourth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues West. Construction crews were blasting away rock through a hill on Fourth Street to maintain the road’s grade when some dynamite went off prematurely. The blast “hurled rough…

On this day in Duluth in 1965, Johnny Mathis and the Young Americans, with a backing orchestra, performed at the Duluth Denfeld High School auditorium. The News Tribune described the event as “an enjoyable evening of toe-tapping, hand-clapping, gently swinging music.” The 1,800-seat auditorium was “packed,” and “there was music to appeal to every taste.”…

On this day in Duluth in 1901, the Duluth State Normal School, which was under construction at 2205 East 5th Street, was nearly completely destroyed by fire. Mrs. George Ashe of 2327 East Second Street reported the fire at 8:49 p.m. Actually, she told her son to run to the home of lumber baron Zar…

On this day in in 1914, Duluth Mayor William Prince woke up on the Iron Range when he thought he was in the Zenith City. The Duluth News Tribune had fun with the story, so rather than us reinterpreting it, here is the whole thing: “MAYOR WAKES UP TO FIND HE’S ON RANGE INSTEAD OF…

On this day in 1860 in what would become Duluth, Methodist minister Reverend James Peet recorded in his diary that, “There are one or more sick in almost every family in Oneota, five or six in one family, mostly scarlet fever among the children.” It was one of many notations regarding the disease he would…

On this day in 1955, Adam Gentles Thomson died of a heart attack at his winter home in Miami Beach. Thomson was born in Duluth in 1888 to Helen and Alexander D. Thomson, an important figure in Duluth’s grain trade and wholesale industry. Thomson—known in newspapers as A. G.—attended Duluth public schools before heading east…