August 1, 1856: New Town Established on Minnesota Point

On this day in what would become Duluth in 1856, Robert Reed and T. A. Markland platted the town of Middleton. The community sat on Minnesota Point between Oatka Beach at today’s Thirty-eighth Street South and north to a point south of where the Duluth Ship Canal runs today. A year later Middelton joined several other towns to form the town of Duluth, which became a city in 1870.  Beginning in 1871, people living south of the canal were none-too-happy that the digging of the Duluth Ship Canal had essentially cut them off from the rest of Duluth, turning their community into an island. This eventually lead to the community ceding from Duluth in 1881 to become the Village of Park Point. When Duluth became a city again in 1887, the legislation included annexing Park Point. Many of Park Point’s residents didn’t rejoin Duluth willingly—some, in fact, considered the annexation attempt an act of aggression. So they took the matter to court, calling the annexation unconstitutional. They argued in part that the mouth of the St. Louis River had shifted from the Superior Entry to the Duluth Ship Canal, moving the state line and thereby making Park Point part of Wisconsin. The Minnesota Supreme Court disagreed, settling the case in Duluth’s favor in January 1890. Historian Walter Van Brunt suggests that it was more than a court decision that gave Park Point back to Duluth: “Finally, being promised a bridge, rather informally and not truly officially perhaps, [the Pointers] surrendered.” It would take Duluth fifteen years to make good on its “promise.”