April 5, 1905: First hotel planned for Minnesota Point

On this day in Duluth in 1905, the Duluth Herald announced intentions by local investors to take advantage of Park Point’s increased popularity—thanks to the Aerial Transfer Bridge—by building a grand hotel on the sandbar. Attorney Joseph W. Reynolds and real estate man Q. J. Bunting planned for their Long Beach Hotel, which would be 100 x 80 feet and reach four stories high, to go up along Minnesota Avenue one block north of Oatka Beach. Duluth architect Austin Terryberry designed the proposed facility, a u-shaped building that featured several verandas and a rooftop observatory surrounded by  gardens. The year-round facility, estimated to cost $25,000, would have forty guest rooms, refreshment rooms, private dining rooms, and a summer pavilion; there would also be a bathing pavilion and “ample facilities for boating.” Besides the bridge making the Point more accessible to visitors, it had already been marketed as a haven for those suffering from hay fever, and Reynolds and Bunting were betting that wealthy allergy sufferers would fill the hotel throughout the summer. For whatever reason, the hotel was never built. Read more about the history of Minnesota Point here.

Architect Austin Terryberry‘s sketch for the Long Beach Hotel, which was never built. (Image: Zenith City Press)