Updates – Zenith City Online

Do You Know These People’s People?

Pete Clure, co-author of our upcoming book on the historic breweries of Duluth and Superior, has been collecting brewerania and research related to the Twin Ports’ historic breweries for nearly forty years. Part of his amazing archive is a collection of eight photos taken at People’s Brewery in Duluth in the 1950s. Unfortunately, we don’t know…

Who Remembers Superior’s Northern Brewing Billboard?

During the 1950s and 1960s a billboard advertising the Northern Brewing Co. stood in Superior along Highway 2 where it crossed the Nemadji River near the Great Northern Ore Docks. We know it had a working clock on it, but no one we’ve talked with who remembers the billboard can recall what the sign said or if it…

Up Next for ZCP: Twin Ports Beer & Railroad History

We’ve been keeping our nose to the grindstone here at Zenith City Press. Last week I finished writing a third complete year of “This Day in Duluth” entries, that’s 1,096 so far, including one for leap day. Meanwhile, coauthor Pete Clure and I have sent the manuscript for Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better: The Historic Breweries of Duluth…

The NorShor: “The Northwest’s most spectacular theater”

As those working on the $30 million renovation of Duluth’s NorShor Theatre race to finish the project in time for the scheduled opening on February 1, we thought it was about time we shared our history of the NorShor. To illustrate the piece, we were fortunate enough to have access to Jim Heffernan’s collection of historic photos…

ZCP author recognized with Duluth Depot Foundation Award

Nancy S. Nelson, author of Duluth’s Historic Parks: Their First 160 Years, has been named the 2017 recipient of the Duluth Depot Foundation’s 2017 Historic Interpretation & Preservation Award. The award is part of the foundation’s annual Arts & Culture Awards, created to recognize outstanding accomplishments in the areas of initiative, community enrichment, and lifetime…

Tour Duluth’s “Dark History” with the Duluth Experience

Our friends at The Duluth Experience have announced the return of their “Dark History” bus tour. This tour, developed in part with the help of Zenith City Press, explores some of the more notorious events in Duluth’s history and even includes a few ghost stories and an Ojibwe legend. The Experience’s Nick Shultz leads the tour, which…

If we “save” the LS&M, we first need a viable plan for its future

This article also appears in the Sunday August 13 edition of the Duluth News Tribune. August is a historic month for the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad. Its final spike was driven August 1, 1870, and passenger service between St. Paul and Duluth began three weeks later. August 2017 finds Duluth’s civic leaders considering the…

Could today’s rail bikes save yesterday’s railroad?

This article also appears in the Sunday August 13 edition of the Duluth News Tribune. In a companion story we have outlined the difficulties of saving what is left of the historic Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad and adapting it for reuse as a vital heritage railroad (click here for that story). Despite those hurdles,…

‘Glensheen: The Official Guide’ a winner at the 2017 NEMBAs

Dennis O’Hara’s Glensheen: The Official Guide to Duluth’s Historic Congdon Estate, published by Zenith City Press, won the Northeast Minnesota Book Award in the Art and Photography category at last night’s 29th-annual award program. Congratulations to Dennis, whose photographs of Glensheen and the grounds that surround it are the focus of the book and the…

Welcome to a new day in the Zenith City!

You’ve no-doubt noticed the website looks quite different today. But you may not have noticed that for the past few years webmeister Dan Turner has essentially been keeping Zenith City Online online with the digital equivalent of duct tape and chewing gum. And now Dan is heading to Northwestern University to get his Ph.D. in linguistics, so…