On this day in Duluth in 1919, Duluth Park Superintendent Captain Henry Cleveland announced the city would be installing two dressing rooms somewhere on Minnesota Point. At that point the city owned very little beachfront along the point, but that wasn’t stopping Duluthians from using it for public bathing. The News Tribune reported that “While…

On this day in 1974, the liquor ban surrounding the University of Minnesota Duluth was lifted, allowing sales within one mile of campus. In 1955, when UMD moved from its Old Campus to a new site on a former dairy farm, a new state law prohibited sales of alcohol within a one-mile radius of the…

On this day in Duluth in 1921, the Duluth News Tribune ran an interview of young vaudevillian Georgie Jessel, in town to perform at the Orpheum Theatre, by Llewellyn Totman, just 18 himself and already a seasoned promotor. Readers may remember Jessel as a frequent guest on NBC’s “Jimmy Durante Show” (1954–1956), Jackie Gleason’s “American…

On this day in Duluth in 1911, Charlie Chaplin made his first appearance in the Zenith City at Duluth’s Empress Theatre at 12 East Superior Street (home today to the Electric Fetus). Chaplin was part of an ensemble cast of 16 performers in “A Night in an English Music Hall,” a comedy produced by Fred…

On this day in Duluth in 1929, Duluth officials dumped 305 gallons of confiscated liquor down the drain in the basement of city hall. The city estimated the retail cost of the liquor at $21,960—nearly $300,000 in today’s dollars. The city, along with the rest of the nation, was under the law of Prohibition; the…

On this day in 2007, Duluth native and wood-block artist Clifton Wayne Karhu died in Kanawaza, Japan. Karhu was born November 23, 1927, to painters Arne and Annie Karhu of 1430 East Third Street. The Karhu family left Duluth about 1944 and moved to Worthington, Minnesota. Clifton attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design…

On this day in Duluth in 1878, the Duluth Minnesotian reported that brewer Mike Fink lost 180 kegs of beer in Brewery Creek: “The addition containing the beer cooler of Mr. Fink, in which was about 180 kegs of beer, was undermined by Brewery Creek, and on Wednesday night fell down, spilling the beer into…

On this day in Duluth in 1910, Duluth businessman Ward Ames Sr. died of Typhoid complicated by Bright’s disease. Ames, sixty-three, was born in Oswego, New York, where he later went into the grain elevator business. He relocated to Fargo, North Dakota in 1881 as the Red River Valley was sprouting with grain. In 1887,…

On this day in Duluth in 1974, a fire in Duluth’s Crossroads Inn Hotel at the northeast corner of Superior Street and Lake Avenue killed four and injured several others. Jarry Keppers, author of Fire & Ice:  A History of the Duluth Fire Department, recounted the blaze: “The fire, which was reported at 5:30 p.m.,…

On this day in Duluth in 1956, citizens of the Zenith City voted to toss out its old form of “commissioner” government, first adapted in 1913, and turn to a “mayor/city council” form of government, still in use today. Under the old system, five elected commissioners were in charge of five different aspects of city…