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 Fond du Lac in 1826, John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company post at Fond du Lac was the site of a treaty signing. Michigan’s territorial governor William Cass and Colonel Thomas L. McKenney, the head of the newly formed U.S. Indian Department (which would later become the Bureau of Indian Affairs),…
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On this day in Duluth in 1965, the Duluth Zoo officially named Robert Wahlsten its new director, ending a six-month controversy over who should run the zoo. Joseph Mayo had been the acting head of the zoo since the retirement of Lloyd Hackl. Wahlsten had worked as a caretaker at the zoo since 1950—but Mayo…
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On this day in Duluth in 1929, Duluthians and state dignitaries celebrated the “completion” of the Boulevard, recently renamed Skyline Parkway. (The road’s completion was also celebrated in 1891.) The original Boulevard was designed to stretch between Lincoln Park along Miller Creek to Chester Park along Chester Creek, but over the years the project was…
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On this day in 1956, Albert Woolson—the last surviving union soldier of the Civil War—died in Duluth, the city he first moved to in 1862. He was either 106 or 109 years old. According to most accounts, Woolson was born in Watertown, New York, on February 11, 1850 (others say he was born in 1847…
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On this day in 1870 in Thomson, Minnesota, at eleven minutes past 8 p.m., the last spike was driven into the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad. Hundreds of laborers on hand for the event broke into cheers—they had been working double shifts to meet the August 1 deadline. At 11:30 that same evening, the first…
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On this day in Duluth in 1869, Dr. Thomas Foster—editor of the Duluth Minnesotian—bemoaned the fact that hundreds of young men from Philadelphia had flocked to Duluth for work and instead caused more trouble than they were worth. The Philadelphians’ presence in Duluth was a direct result of Duluth’s reliance on Jay Cooke. The Philadelphia…
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On this day in Duluth in 1891, William K. Rogers resigned from his post as the president of Duluth’s Board of Park Commissioners. Rogers had been president of the group since its inception and is credited as the man behind the plan of Duluth’s amazing park system: A collection of corridor parks along streams and…
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On this day in 1968, native Duluthian and Unidentified Flying Object researcher James E. McDonald testified before Congress along with four other men. McDonald along with prominent scientists Carl Sagan, J. Allen Hynek, Robert L. Hall, James A. Harder, and Robert M. L. Baker Jr. testified before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics…
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On this day in Duluth in 1910, “saloon buster” Carrie Nation spoke to Duluthians from the pavilion in Lincoln Park at an event sponsored by local temperance groups; another talk was scheduled that day in Lakeside. Nation—often pictured holding a hatchet she famously used to literally bust up saloons—entitled her talk, “How She Smashed, Why…
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On this day in Duluth in 1922, Duluth’s Walter Hoover returned to his home town as an international sporting hero—on film, anyway. The Garrick Theatre showed moving pictures of Hoover as he became the world champion rower by taking the Diamond Challenge Sculls at the annual Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames at Henley-on-Thames, England. The…
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