Alworth Building
From Zenith: A Postcard Perspective of Historic Duluth, copyright © 2005, Zenith City Press, Duluth, Minnesota. Image: X-Comm.
306 West Superior Street
Architect: Daniel H. Burnham
Built: 1910 | Extant
Alworth Building. (Image: X-Comm.)
Sixteen stories of concrete and steel covered in buff-colored brick and terra-cotta made the Alworth Building the tallest in Duluth—and almost one hundred years later, it remains the city’s highest. You have to have a good eye to see its ornamental features, most of which appear at the top floor. The building is crowned with an ornate cornice and oval window openings on the top floor and features lion heads carved from stone. Constructing what the Duluth News-Tribune once called “a cosmopolitan office building, one that dwarfs the Tower of Babel” and “an epoch in the architectural history of Duluth” cost a mere $500,000. It took workers just nine months to build the Alworth, as much a feat today as it was in 1910—and most of the work was done during winter months. The building was named for prominent Duluth attorney Marshall W. Alworth.
