Bradley Townhouses

The Bradley Townhouses in 1891, photographer unknown. [Image: Duluth Public Library]

218 & 220 West 3rd Street | Architect: Palmer & Hall | Built: 1889 | Lost: 1968

Alva Bradley hired Emmet S. Palmer and Lucien P. Hall to design his three-story Romanesque Revival double townhouse faced with brick and trimmed in brownstone trim featuring prominent gables, roof dormers with finials, half towers, Roman-arch windows, and several porches. Bradley, born in Ohio in 1849, came to Duluth in 1882 after spending many years in the lumber business in Newark, Ohio. In the Zenith City, he and his brother Edward joined their father Henry’s wholesale lumber firm, the Bradley-Hanford Lumber Company. The Bradleys and several relatives lived in the townhouses until Alva left Duluth for Denver, Colorado, in 1908. The following year the Bradley Townhouses were divided into apartments and furnished rooms. The building served as an apartment house until 1968 when it was demolished. The site is now part of a parking lot for San Marco Apartments.