Archive Dive: At the Head of the Lakes (1850–1869)

The Head of the Lakes, 1856. {Map: Zenith City Press]

This week’s archive dive presents the second chapter of Zenith City Press publisher Tony Dierckins’s Duluth: An Urban Biography, winner of the 2020/2021 Northeast Minnesota Book Award. Titled “At the Head of the Lakes,” the excerpt covers the period that includes the creation of both Duluth and Superior, a failed copper rush along the Lake Superior North Shore, and how both communities survived the desperate decade following the Panic of 1857. Click the links below to read all four sections of “At the Head of the Lakes” from chapter 2 of Duluth: An Urban Biography:

North Shore Copper Rush (1854–1858)

The Townsites that Became Duluth (1856–1857)

Panic and War (1857–1865)

Railroad Dreams (1866–1868)