This week’s sneak peak at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—helped Duluthians predict the local weather from 1905 to 1959 and still stands today as a private home Read our history of the U.S. Weather Bureau Station from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture here.

Happy 2022! On Mondays throughout 2022 we will be giving you a sneak peak at our newest book, Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and the late Maryanne C. Norton. We’re hoping to release the book in June, but meanwhile you can find out more about it here. For our first sneak peak…

Duluthians have been enjoying the legal right to purchase beer, booze, and wine on Sundays going on three years now, following the repeal of an 1856 law banning sales of liquor on Sunday throughout the state of Minnesota. But a quick look at the city’s history—particularly its first forty years—show that the Zenith City often…

First called Stearns Park, Duluth’s Lester Park was a gift to the city form the developers of Lakeside and Lester Park, which were annexed by Duluth in 1893. But Duluthians had been enjoying picnics, fishing, and much more along the Lester for many years before that. Read the history of what the the Duluth News Tribune…

If you’ve ever enjoyed a craft spirit at Vilkre Distillery inside the Gowan-Lenning-Brown building or a craft beer at Hoops Brewing inside the old Marshall-Wells Hardware office/warehouse, then you have visited most of what remains of Duluth’s once-thriving Jobbing industry, which today would likely be called “wholesaling.” Duluth once had a city of warehouses along…

The archive delivered a gem this week: A biography of Duluth-native Wally Gilbert, who played professional basketball, was a star on the legendary Duluth Eskimos of the early NFL, and was named the all-time best third basemen who ever suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Read about the man the Duluth News Tribune once called…

Thoughts of passenger steamships often conjure images of luxurious crossings of the Atlantic by the well-to-do, and perhaps the poor immigrants crowded in the steerage compartment on there way to make new lives for themselves in America—or perhaps the tragic ends to the Titanic and Lusitania. But if you lived close to any of the…

In 1892 retired U. S. Cavalry officer Robert Augustus Torrey arrived in Duluth and promptly proceeded to pick out a lot on the lower 300 block of West Superior Street, hire Duluth’s premier architects, and build the Zenith City’s first “skyscraper”—a building that has continuously served Duluth for 122 years, and for about 30 years…

One of Duluth’s oldest public greenspaces, Lincoln Park was established in 1889 as the western anchor in the city’s plan to connect corridor parks created along streams and rivers with a carriage path along what was once the beach of ancient glacial Lake Duluth. (The eastern anchor was Garfield Park, known since the 1890s as…

Most Duluthians and plenty of visitors are familiar with Twin Ponds just east of Enger Park, but few realize they were engineered in the 1890s by damming Buckingham Creek. Fewer still know who Buckingham Creek was named for. Like most of Duluth’s creeks, Buckingham was named for an early resident who lived on or adjacent…

Duluth’s tourism industry began with and is hinged upon the city’s iconic Aerial Bridge, but what is often lost on visitors is that if there was not a ship canal to cross, there would be no bridge. If the people of Superior, Wisconsin, in the 1870s had their way, the canal would not exist. Read…

You may recognize the little building pictured below, which has stood at 3 West Superior Street since 1883 and received a restorative facelift just a few years ago. It was built as Bell & Eyster’s Bank, and while that institution has long since gone out of business, the  building remains as a reminder of the…

Duluth’s aerial bridge has been a tourist draw since the day it first opened as a transfer bridge in 1905, but few people who come to take a look at Duluth’s novel engineering marvel realize that iconic structure’s history is laced with tragic incidents, which you can read about in this week’s dive into the…

In the 1870s, the melancholic William K. Rodgers left Duluth to serve as the personal secretary of his friend and mentor, president Rutherford B. Hayes. He would return to the Zenith City in 1889 after laying out his vision for the nation’s most remarkable urban park system and became the controversial first president of Duluth’s…

The fluctuating iron mining industry has left its mark on Minnesota’s Iron Range, from lakes that were once pit mines, mini-mountain ranges of pile overburden, and abandoned towns that were once filled with miner’s and their families. This week we revisit the archive to pull out a story from contributor Dan Turner about many of…

Duluthians who often use Sixth Avenue East to get from the hillside to Central Entrance (or vice versa) have likely taken note of the tiny building on the west side of the road between Sixth and Seventh Street marked with the sign Storey Taxidermists. It was built by the son of Thomas H. Storey, a…

As the home to the North Shore Scenic Railroad and the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, Duluth’s 1892 Union Depot sees a lot of tourist traffic throughout the summer, but we wonder: How many visitors—or Duluthians, for that matter— know the history of that remarkable building? And so we’ve selected it as this week’s selection from…

Summer is an especially buy time for Glensheen, the historic Duluth state along Tischer Creek and the Lake Superior Shore built by Chester and Clara Congdon between 1905 and 1909. One of the often overlooked stories of Glensheen is why Chester Congdon purchased and donated land along the creek above his estate to the city…

From the early 1880s until about 1910, the nation’s lumber industry was centered on Duluth and Superior. In the mid 1890s thirty-two lumber mills operated along both sides of the St. Louis River in the Twin Ports. But by 1920, only one mill was operating in Duluth. How did the local lumber industry get its…

Have you ever wondered who LaVaque Road is named for? Heidi Bakk-Hansen did, so she researched Duluth’s pioneering LaVaque brothers and wrote a wonderful history of their lives in early Duluth. It’s this week’s selection from the Zenith City Archive, and you can read it here.

In 2006 a large piece of wooden cribbing washed up at the very northwest corner of Lake Superior in Duluth. Cribbing used in the 19th century was essentially a wood frame made of heavy timber that was sunk and filled with rocks to provide a foundation for docks, canal piers, breakwaters, and other structures. The…

Built in 1910, Duluth’s Alworth Building was the tallest building in the state of Minnesota. Named for the man who financed its construction and designed by renowned Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, the Alworth  remains today the tallest building in the Zenith City. Read a history of the Alworth here.

This week’s dive into the archive pulled out a notorious tale of an event that took place within Duluth’s landmark Hotel Duluth. It was August 1929 when a hungry black bear entered the hotel to enjoy a quick snack, but was interrupted by a heroic but inebriated Duluthian who was determined to keep the bruin…

If you’ve enjoyed Chambers Grove in Fond du Lac in the past few years, you may have walked the new interpretive trail takes you through what’s left of You say you’ve never heard of Duluth’s Grand Mountain? Well I bet you have—in fact, I bet most Duluthians have been there—but you likely know it better…

If you’ve enjoyed Chambers Grove in Fond du Lac in the past few years, you may have walked the new interpretive trail takes you through what’s left of Michael and Emily Chambers’ brownstone quarry. It was one of three operating near Fond du Lac from the 1870s to about 1910, producing stone that faced building…

John Hunter came to Duluth in 1869 to open a hardware and mercantile store and within a year found himself the Republican candidate in the new city’s first mayoral election. He and his family thrived in Duluth, and his sons went on to develop Duluth’s Hunter’s Park neighborhood. Read a history of the Hunters of…

If Duluth didn’t have its Ship Canal, it wouldn’t have its iconic Aerial Bridge—and it likely wouldn’t have become a great commercial shipping center nor enjoy today’s thriving tourism industry. From it’s legend-inspiring digging in 1870, the ship canal has shaped the city, and together with the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad was the key…

The Lester River Fish hatchery—that old Victorian building at the mouth of the Lester River—has caught the eye of many a passerby over the years, but few  know its history. It was the brainchild of Dr. Robert Ormsby Sweeney, a true Minnesota pioneer and somewhat of an eccentric renaissance man who not only dreamed up…

This week’s archive dive brings up a legendary tale of Duluth: How Wilhelm Boeing, father of Boeing Aerospace founder William Being, tried to not only sue Duluth over the ownership of the Duluth Ship Canal, but actually tried to block shipping traffic through the canal by tying a rope between its piers. It’s a truly…

In 1890, Duluth’s Board of Park Commissioners laid down the law, passing a resolution that read in part “that the President of the Board is hereby authorized to request of the proper city authorities the appointment of two policemen to patrol…public grounds…to the strict enforcement of the police regulations of the City therein.” It essentially…

This week’s dive into the archive takes us back to a time before Duluth existed, when Ojibwe dominated the Western Lake Superior region and they worked with the French, and then Americans, in the fur trade. In fact, Duluth’s Fond du Lac neighborhood was originally the site of an Ojibwe village and a post and…

This week’s dive into the Zenith City Press story archive pulls out the biography of a man who’s name you may not know but, if you love Duluth’s old Romanesque buildings, you know and likely love his work: O. George Thrana, Duluth’s master stone carver who began his career in the Zenith City while still…

Duluth’s unique Aerial Lift Bridge, the only one on the planet with a top span, was converted form a transfer bridge that was also unique: the only stiff-girded transfer bridge and the only ever built in North America. And just like the lift bridge, many people mistakenly believe Duluth’s transfer bridge was the first one…

Duluth’s 1889 City Hall  has been in the news lately with the announcement that part of the building will be converted to a boutique hotel. The historic building is one of the few remaining Romanesque revival buildings in Duluth designed by Oliver Traphagen, the city’s most prolific architech from 1886 to 1896. So this week…

It‘s only April and the snow is already gone. Duluthians have already taken to the great outdoors, and in this town that means hitting the parks. So this week’s dive into the archives focuses on the backbone of Duluth’s incredible park system: Skyline Parkway. Originally designed as “The Boulevard” in the late 1890s, a carriage…

This week in 1949 the Saturday Evening Post — perhaps the nation’s most popular magazine at the time, known for its covers featuring the works of various artists, including Norman Rockwell — profiled “apple-cheeked, blue-eyed, tow-haired Duluth”in an essay written by Arthur W. Baum. Baum‘s essay paints a rather whimsical picture of Duluth, where “the…

Before Duluth created its remarkable, expansive park system beginning in 1889, town “squares” were set aside as public greenspaces — but few were ever used as parks, nor had much of a public to enjoy them. So as we greet April and warmer months to come we take this week’s dive into the archive for…

This week’s dive into the archive again features a wonderful profile by Heidi Bakk-Hansen in honor of Women’s History Month: Ann Colby Albright, a choral director and “the first African-American to work as a teacher in the Duluth schools, eventually touching the lives of hundreds of Duluth singers through various choruses and lessons. She became…

This week’s dive into the archive retrieved a gem in honor of Women’s History Month: Heidi Bakk-Hansen’s portrait of Duluth journalist Mary McFadden, “an intrepid young woman who made her way to the Zenith City to find success and fame during those heady times, only to disappear from the collective consciousness within a generation.” Besides…

This morning Zenith City Press launches a new weekly feature, “From the Zenith City Press Archives.” Every Tuesday we will feature a story that was originally published on this website or in one of our books — or both. Our first selection comes from Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better: The Historic Breweries of Duluth and Superior…