April 4, 1913: Duluth declared home of the most Finns in the State

On this day in Duluth in 1913, the Duluth News Tribune reported that the U. S. Census office declared the Zenith City home to more Finns than any other community in the United States. The data, collected in 1910, showed that 2,772 Finns lived in Duluth; the paper declared their must be more, since “there has been a big Finnish invasion since.” The report showed that Duluth also led the state in Belgians, with 141. What about folks from Scandinavia? DaLoot must have the most of those, right? Nope—Minneapolis lead the state in the number of Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes. Minneapolis was second only to Chicago in the number of Swedes and, the newspaper declared, “ranks close to Stockholm” as the foremost Swedish city in the world. St. Paul made up for its lack of Scandinavians by outranking Minneapolis in the number of Germans, Irish, and Italians. According to the report, in 1910 Duluth was home to 29,633 foreign-born citizens, including 1,165 Austrians, 141 Belgians, 1,423 French Canadians, 4,418 non-French Canadians, 405 Danes, 961 English, 2,772 Finns, 69 French, 2,595 Germans, 57 Greeks, 49 Dutch, 76 Hungarians, 620 Irish, 648 Italians, 5,009 Norwegians, 79 Romanians, 1,367 Russians, 554 Scots, 7,281 Swedes, 48 Swiss, 62 Asian Turks, 31 Welsh, and 363 from unspecified countries.