On this day in Duluth in 1915, judges selected the winner of a contest to design women’s bathing suits that would be rented at Duluth’s new municipal swimming beach at Indian Point at the foot of Fairmount Park. The contest, as well as the bathing beach, were the ideas of 71-year-old park superintendent Captain Henry…

On this day in Duluth in 1910, the North Pier Lighthouse at the eastern end of the Duluth Ship Canal’s north pier burned for the first time. The Lake Carrier’s Association had been arguing for year that since the canal was only three hundred feet wide, the South Breakwater Light wasn’t sufficient for mariners to guide…

On this day in Duluth (and throughout the U.S.) in 1933, Prohibition was partially ended—and Duluth’s Fitger Brewing Company was ready for the future. Weeks earlier President Roosevelt signed the “Beer Bill,” allowing for the brewing and sales of beer containing no more than 3.2 percent alcohol. State and municipalities quickly followed suit. Fitger’s had…

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…

On this day in Duluth in 1870, Colonel Joshua B. Culver was elected the city’s first mayor. Historic accounts of this event differ. Walter Van Brunt, future historian and Duluth’s first City Clerk, soberly recorded that the election was held, “in the schoolhouse at Portland, and the candidates for election to mayoral office were Col.…

On this day in Duluth in 1906, the Duluth News Tribune heralded a major expansion of the Duluth Brewing & Malting brewery complex in the West End at a cost of a $45,000, about $1.2 million in 2018. Chicago brewery architect Bernard Barthels, whose work include St. Paul’s Schmidt Brewery, designed a two-story addition to…

On this day on Minnesota Point in 1881, the new Village of Park Point held its first municipal election. Before Duluth became a city in 1870 and the canal was cut the following year, most of the community south of the canal site had been the township of Middleton. Cut off from the mainland after…

On this day in Duluth in 1913, Lois Dworshak was born to Louis and Elizabeth Dworshak at 2129 West Second Street at the time. According to biographer David Ouse, Lois began skating at the age of eight with instruction from Frank Sullivan at the Duluth Curling Club, where her parents were both active members. She…

On this day in Duluth in 1914, pioneer lumberman William T. Bailey died in Rochester, Minnesota, where he had gone to seek treatment from the Mayo Clinic. Bailey was born in Baylysboro, Ontario, in 1842. When he was seven his father set out to California to try his luck in the gold rush—and was never…

On this day in Duluth in 1897, the Lester Park Hotel was destroyed by fire. The Lakeside Land Company, which developed Lakeside and Lester Park, built the hotel in 1889 at 6003 London Road—essentially still a forest at the time. In 1897 the hotel hosted teamsters hired by the city to transport steel pipe for…