August 3, 1929: Skyline Parkway Officially Opens

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 expanded. Much of that expansion was driven by Mayor Samuel Snively and Parks Superintendent F. Rodney Paine. According to the Duluth News Tribune, “beneath the towering pines of Jay Cooke park, where only 15 years ago a wood-trodden trail existed, a gathering of state, county, and municipal officials and civic leaders…dedicated the driveway leading from the boulevard system of Duluth to the park.” The News Tribune reported that Otto Swanstrom, president of the Minnesota Good Roads Association and founder of Duluth’s Diamond Tools, headed an auto caravan that left city hall at eleven in the morning to drive over the new road for the formal ceremony at Jay Cooke State Park. Judge Clarence Magney, a former Duluth mayor and the chairman of the Jay Cooke Park Commission, which drove the state park’s creation, was the principal speaker. Other speakers included Lieutenant Governor Charles E. Adams and Mayor Snively. Minneapolis Mayor W. F. Kunze and members of the Minneapolis Park Board also attended the ceremony that officially opened Skyline Parkway. Read the entire history of Skyline Parkway, including Seven Bridges Road, here.