March 22, 1910: Duluth’s Ward Ames Sr. dies of Typhoid 

On this day in Duluth in 1910, Duluth businessman Ward Ames Sr. died of Typhoid complicated by Bright’s disease. Ames, sixty-three, was born in Oswego, New York, where he later went into the grain elevator business. He relocated to Fargo, North Dakota in 1881 as the Red River Valley was sprouting with grain. In 1887, as Duluth regained its city status, Ames moved to the Zenith City and became a member of the Duluth Board of Trade and began trading in grain. He also became civically active and “was a factor in the business, civic, social and philanthropic interests of Duluth.” His companies included Duluth’s Ames-Brooks, Winnipeg’s Zenith Grain Co., and Ames-Barnes of New York, which he owned with his son Ward Jr. and Julius Barnes. Here’s the Duluth News Tribune’s tribute to him: “Ward Ames Sr. was a man his home city will sadly miss, and a citizen his state could not afford to lose. Quiet, undemonstrative and unobtrusive, his daily life left a trail of good deeds, of encouragement and of incentive to right effort. He was one of God’s men, who leave the world better for having lived in it. We believe there never has been a project for the betterment of Duluth, for helping living conditions, for increasing the city’s moral health or material prosperity, that Mr. Ames was not ready and glad to help. In many of them he was himself among the the promoters. In business, he was among Duluth’s strongest factors: in finance, he carried his full share of public burden, and in all his walks…he carried the same principle of complete integrity in both thought and act…He has no doubt left a considerable fortune…but the richest inheritance he leaves is that which comes in common to all who have come within the wide range of his personal and business touch—the influence of the simple, unaffected personality of an honest and sincere character that placed what was right and good first.”

Ward Ames Sr. (Image: Duluth Public Library)