March 14, 1913: Death of Duluth pioneer Roger Munger

On this day in Duluth in 1914, pioneer Roger Munger died at 83 years of age in the home of his daughter and son-in-law, Dwight Woodbridge. After he and his brothers, who performed as the Munger Bothers Orchestra, opened the state’s first music store in St. Paul, Munger and his wife Olive moved to Duluth in 1868. Munger built one of Duluth’s first sawmills, its first grain elevator, first flour mill, and first opera house. Here is just some of what the Duluth News Tribune wrote of him after his death: “Roger S. Munger was the typical Minnesota Pioneer. He had the boundless enthusiasm, energy, hope, confidence and self-reliance which make states…. So it is with men who have done much, who have laid the foundations upon which others build, who see their visions verified by others, pass away, leaving their own monuments, built by themselves and needing no others to perpetuate their memories. As long as there is a Duluth there will be in truth a Roger Munger.” Another of Munger’s brothers, Gilbert, was a noted painter; his 1871 depiction of Duluth hangs in the Duluth Public Library’s North Shore room and a copy of it (also made by Gilbert Munger) hangs in the Kitchi Gammi Club. Learn more about Roger Munger here.

Roger Munger. (Image: Duluth Public Library)