From the Archive: The Torrey Building

In 1892 retired U. S. Cavalry officer Robert Augustus Torrey arrived in Duluth and promptly proceeded to pick out a lot on the lower 300 block of West Superior Street, hire Duluth’s premier architects, and build the Zenith City’s first “skyscraper”—a building that has continuously served Duluth for 122 years, and for about 30 years Duluthians literally set their watches by it. Read its history here.

Nye’s Studio in Duluth produced this watercolor postcard of the Torrey Building, likely produced in 1893. (Image: University of Minnesota Duluth Kathryn A. Martin Library Archives and Special Collections)