Archive Dive: “Boom to Bust to Boom (1869–1887)”
This perspective map of Duluth in 1883 was made by Henry Wellge. (Image: Zenith City Press)
This week’s archive dive presents the third chapter of Zenith City Press publisher Tony Dierckins’s Duluth: An Urban Biography, winner of the 2020/2021 Northeast Minnesota Book Award. Titled “Boom to Bust to Boom (1869–1887)” the excerpt tells the tale of how Duluth booked with the coming of the railroads in 1869, went bust when Jay Cooke ran out of manoey and set off the Panic of 1873, struggled so much in the 1870s that it had to reorganize as a villge, and finally got back on its feet and regained city status in the 1880s . Click the links below to read all four sections of “Boom to Bust to Boom” from chapter 3 of Duluth: An Urban Biography: