Posts by Tony Dierckins

West Duluth‘s People‘s Brewing Company was founded by Duluth liquor retailers so they could increase their profits by NOT selling beer made by other breweries. The business model was tossed out when Prohibition became law. The brewery did not survive the 1920s, but was reinvigorated in 1933 and went on to make beloved brands such…

Visitors to Duluth’s Lake Superior Railroad Museum have seen this week’s archive topic first-hand and fully restored. The Locomotive Minnetonka arrived in Duluth in 1870 on a boat to be used by the Northern Pacific Railroad to carry construction materials to today’’s Carlton and beyond, playing an instrumental role in the railroad’s construction west across…

This week’s archive dive  takes us to Duluth‘s Endion neighborhood, where in 1910 Duluth Unitarians constructed a new Tudor-inspired chirch designed by local architect Anthony Puck. From our book Duluth‘s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940. Check out the story here.

This week’s archive dive presents the fourth chapter of Zenith City Press publisher Tony Dierckins’s Duluth: An Urban Biography, winner of the 2020/2021 Northeast Minnesota Book Award. Titled “Prohibition, Depression, and War (1920–1955),” the excerpt explains how Duluth navigated Prohibition, the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the brief boom that followed the conflagration…

This week’s dive into the ZCP archive tells the story of Superior’s West Duluth Brewing Company, created in 1889 by Bernard Schwanekamp and his very wealthy brother-in-law, Joseph Hennes. The brewery initially thrived, then struggled in the wake of the panic of 1893 and later became part of the Northern Brewing Company. From our book.…

Meet Duluth’s Jefferson brothers, Ernest and Robert. One of them helped plat the original streets of Duluth, built the town’s first hotel, and then went off to war and never returned. The other never stepped foot in Duluth until after the war, where he had had lost a leg, but thrived in the Zenith City…

Once the Duluth Ship Canal was cut in 1871, the lower half of Minnesota Point became an island—and for those living below the canal crossing  into the rest of Duluth was no easy task. The only bridge was a rickety wood-and-wire temporary bridge that stood from the end of the season’s navigation until Lake Superior…

This week’s archive dive presents the fourth 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 (Expansion and Prosperity (1888–1919),” the excerpt explains how Duluth boomed over this 30-year period, expanding its borders, adding immigrants to its population,…

This week’s dive into the ZCP archive tells the story of Duluth’s “Moose Brewery,” Duluth Brewing & Malting, a West End fixture from 1896 to 1966. DB&M produced such beloved brands as Rex Beer and Love-It Soda during Prohibition—until Fitger’s purchased both brands at the start of the Great Depression. After Prohibition, DB&M produced Karlsbrau,…

Did you know that Fairmount Park (no, not Fairmont—that’s a mistake the city has been making since the park was created) was never intended to contain a zoo? And that West Duluth residents insisted that the city create the Park? Or that to save money, for a time zoo founder Bert Onsgaard did not feed…

Moving grain from the Red River Valley through Duluth via railroads and Great Lakes freighters to flour mills int he east helped Duluth get back on its feet after the Panic of 1873,  played an important link in Duluth for the next one hundred years, and still contributes to the local economy. Consequently, Duluth  was…

This week we walk the hallowed halls of the 1895 Irving Elementary School, designed by architects Palmer, Hall & Hunt and the model for the main building of the original Duluth Normal School (now UMD) campus, ‘Old Main.” Rad the history of the school the Duluth News Tribune once called News Tribune called it “the…

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…

This week’s dive into the ZCP archive tells the story of Duluth’s longest-lived manufacturer: The Fitger Brewing Company. Discover how brewmaster August Fitger and his business partner Percy Anneke took a modest brewery on the Lake Superior shore and turned it into a regional powerhouse that dominated northern Wisconsin and Northern Minnesota for decades until…

As the son of a prominent banker, Duluth park superintendent F. Rodney Paine was born with a silver spoon in his mouth—and with no need to pursue wealth selflessly dedicated himself to  the creation of one of the most remarkable park systems in the nation. Read a biography of the man who helped create Jay…

Duluth’s is of course renown for the aerial bridge over its ship canal, but have you ever wondered why the city dug the canal in the first place? Find out in this week’s Archive Dive, here. The story itself comes from our book Duluth’s Aerial Bridge (and the Canal It Crosses), which you can preview…

This week’s Archive Dive takes us inside our newest book, “Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940,” for a look at the 1910 St. James Orphanage at 4321 Allendale Avenue and designed by Duluth architect A. Werner Lignell. You might know the building as Woodland Hills, a residential youth treatment center later renamed the Hills Youth and…

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…

This week’s dive into the ZCP archive takes us along Lake Superior‘s Wisconsin South Shore to revisit the historic breweries of Ashland and Washburn. The story involves one notorious brewery owner who was arrested for arrest for “assault with attempt to kill.” after slashing another man’s jugular vein. From our book Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better:…

Did you know that a portion of Chester Park was once the site of the first Forest Hill Cemetery? That the park is NOT named for Chester Congdon, but was once named for assassinated U.S. president James Garfield? That the upper portion of the park was once home to the world’s largest ski jump? What…

Many people believe that Duluth’s 1904–1930 Aerial Transfer Bridge was the first such bridge ever constructed, but while it was the first in the western hemisphere and unique in its construction, it was not the first. But it was indeed inspired by the first, which you can learn about —along with other transfer bridges—in this…

This week’s Archive Dive takes us inside our newest book, “Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940,” for a look at the 1900 Patrick House at 2306 E. Superior Street and designed by Duluth architect I. Vernon Hill. One of the few homes in Duluth using a Picturesque design, accented with some Tudor Revival, it was a…

This week’s archive dive presents another excerpt from the first chapter of Zenith City Press publisher Tony Dierckins’s Duluth: An Urban Biography, winner of the 2020/2021 Northeast Minnesota Book Award. Titled “First Peoples,” the excerpt explains the early human history of the far western end of Lake Superior from the Paleo-Indians to  the Ojibwe migration…

This week’s dive into the ZCP archive takes us north of Duluth to Minnesota’s Vermilion and Mesabi Iron Ranges to examine the two commercial breweries that operated on the Range prior to Prohibition. It’s a brief but interesting tale, including an effort by publicly disgraced Duluth alderman Mike Fink—who started the Lake Superior Brewery and…

Luther Mendenhall first showed up in Duluth in 1869 along with George C. Stone and George Sargent, each holding a great deal of Jay Cook’s money (as well as their own). All three were sent to the Zenith City by Cooke to build the town’s infrastructure as Cooke’s Lake Superior & Mississippi was under construction.…

With all of the grain flowing through the Twin Ports in the late 19th-century, it only made sense to build some flour mills along their shores. Superior actually out did Duluth when it came to Flour mills when it came to the amount of mills operating withing their orders, , but the largest and most…

Scottish immigrant John Panton met his Irish counterpart Joseph Watson in the early 1880s when both worked for the Wm. Donaldson & Company dry goods store in Minneapolis, housed in the Glass Block building along Nicollet Avenue, known for its large plate-glass windows. The pair opened a dry goods store in Duluth in 1887, and…

This week’s archive dive presents an excerpt from the first chapter of Zenith City Press publisher Tony Dierckins’s Duluth: An Urban Biography, winner of the 2020/2021 Northeast Minnesota Book Award. Titled “Formed By Fire & Ice,” the excerpt explains the geological history of the far western end of Lake Superior, including how the lake was…

This week we dive into the archive to pull up some history on the pioneer brewers of Duluth and Superior. Brewing began in both communities in 1859, providing both a potent potable and jobs, as at the time the entire Head of the Lakes was struggling financially in the wake of the Panic of 1857.…

This week‘s dive into the Zenith City Press archive brings us to Duluth‘s far-western environs, home of Fond du Lac Park. Not only was the park once home to Duluth‘s municipal tree nursery and the seven bridges of Mission Creek Boulevard (mirroring the bridges of Seven Bridges Road nearly 28 miles to the east), but…

This week’s Archive Dive takes us inside our newest book, “Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940” to tell the story of Duluth’s Polish Catholics through its three Polish Catholic churches: St. Mary’s Star of the Sea, Stes. Peter & Paul, and St. Josephat. Together their stories include mistreatment by Duluth’s Irish and German Catholics, the local…

This week’s sneak peek at Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 still stands and continues to serve its original purpose. You may know it as that oddly shaped building tucked under Point of Rocks as you head down Mesaba Avenue to get to Superior Street or I-35. Discover much more about the 1911 Duluth Bethel HERE.…

This week’s sneak peek from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1879–1940 started life as a private Catholic high school for girls called Villa Scholastica. Twenty or so years after it was built, it had been transformed via additions into Tower Hall—and the high school had evolved into the College of St. Scholastica. Read our history of…

This week’s sneak peek from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1879–1940 still stands alongside the Lester River and the shore of Lake Superior. Read the history of the 1889 Lester River Fish Hatchery once produced 150 million fish eggs per year, helping to stock fish along the Minnesota North Shore and Wisconsin South Shore of Lake…

The first copies of Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture are rolling off the press right here in Duluth at J. S. Print Group. We are expecting to have books by Monday, August 15. It’s been a struggle, and paper costs have raised even higher than we expected—since 2020 paper costs have increased nine times; most stock…

After more then tens years after we began researching and writing Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture, the book is finally going to press this week right here in Duluth at J. S. Print Group. We are expecting to have books by Monday, August 15. It’s been a struggle, and paper costs have raised even higher than…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton—is one of the most unique homes to ever grace the Zenith City—and it was faced with natives stone excavated to while creating nearby streets. Discover much more about the Myers House HERE. (Preview Duluth’s Grand Old…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton—features the 1895 Duluth Board of Trade Building. Did you know that part of this building is now a portion of the Como Park Zoo Conservatory in St. Paul? Neither did we when we started researching this…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton—was built of native stone quarried at nearby Hunter’s Hill. Read our history of the Glen Avon Presbyterian from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture here. Pre-order now and take advantage of our early bird specials! Just click here.

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton—takes us back to the 1890s, when booming Duluth got its first federal building, which served as the city’s post office, federal courts, customs office, and even weather station. The building, which stood in the heart of…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton—was the last train station  built in Duluth when it was constructed in 1910. By then Duluth had so many rail lines between Rice’s Point and what is now Canal Park that the railroad had to blast…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—is a rather small church built on a grand scale, and a key element in the story of the role Serbs played in Duluth’s development. Read our history of the 1924 house of worship…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—is the first brick municipal building constructed in Duluth—and it is still standing. Read our history of the Duluth Volunteer Fire Department’s Hall #1 from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture here.

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—answers the often-asked question, “What’s that building?” Well, for starters, it helps provide Duluth with electricity. Read our history of the Great Norther Power Distribution Station from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture here.

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—was built in 1914 as a small vaudeville house, but many Duluthians likely best remember the building as the longtime home of the Peterson-Anderson Flower Shop. Read our history of the Zelda Theater and…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—was built across the street from Duluth Central High School to serve the Duluth Y.M.C.A.’s Boys Department. Minnesota YWCA State Secretary E. W. Peck called the building “the most practical, most satisfactory and complete…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—is the magnificent Picturesque Stewart Creek Bridge, which carries West Skyline Parkway over the Stewart Creek east of Bardon’s Creek, one of over a dozen bridges, lighthouses, and park structures found in the book.…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—is the magnificent Neoclassical Style home Sophia and John Panton built at the northwest corner of Nineteenth Avenue East and Second Street in 1903, designed by renowned Minneapolis architects Cobourn & Kees. John Panton…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—was one of the first ornate brick buildings constructed in Duluth and first held a bank and hardware store operated by early Duluthian John Hunter, whose sons and son-in-law developed Hunter’s Park. The building…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—served as the church of Duluth’s First Church of Christ Scientist for 87 years and has been home to Karpele’s Manuscript Museum since 1999. Read our history of Duluth’s First Church of Christ, Scientist…

This week’s sneak peek at our newest book—Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and Maryanne C. Norton (coming summer 2022)—helped Duluthians predict the local weather from 1905 to 1959 and still stands today as a private home Read our history of the U.S. Weather Bureau Station from Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture here.

Happy 2022! On Mondays throughout 2022 we will be giving you a sneak peek at our newest book, Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture 1870–1940 by Tony Dierckins and the late Maryanne C. Norton. We’re hoping to release the book in June, but meanwhile you can find out more about it here. For our first sneak peak…

Duluthians have been enjoying the legal right to purchase beer, booze, and wine on Sundays going on three years now, following the repeal of an 1856 law banning sales of liquor on Sunday throughout the state of Minnesota. But a quick look at the city’s history—particularly its first forty years—show that the Zenith City often…

First called Stearns Park, Duluth’s Lester Park was a gift to the city form the developers of Lakeside and Lester Park, which were annexed by Duluth in 1893. But Duluthians had been enjoying picnics, fishing, and much more along the Lester for many years before that. Read the history of what the the Duluth News Tribune…

If you’ve ever enjoyed a craft spirit at Vilkre Distillery inside the Gowan-Lenning-Brown building or a craft beer at Hoops Brewing inside the old Marshall-Wells Hardware office/warehouse, then you have visited most of what remains of Duluth’s once-thriving Jobbing industry, which today would likely be called “wholesaling.” Duluth once had a city of warehouses along…

The archive delivered a gem this week: A biography of Duluth-native Wally Gilbert, who played professional basketball, was a star on the legendary Duluth Eskimos of the early NFL, and was named the all-time best third basemen who ever suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Read about the man the Duluth News Tribune once called…

Thoughts of passenger steamships often conjure images of luxurious crossings of the Atlantic by the well-to-do, and perhaps the poor immigrants crowded in the steerage compartment on there way to make new lives for themselves in America—or perhaps the tragic ends to the Titanic and Lusitania. But if you lived close to any of the…