April 23, 1870: Superior Tribune crosses bay in dead of night, becomes Duluth Tribune

On this night in 1870, newspaper editor Robert C. Mitchell “slipped the Superior Tribune across the bay…and gave Duluth its second paper.” Mitchell arrived in Superior roughly ten months earlier, leasing the facilities of the Superior Gazette from the widow of its former publisher, Washington Ashton. He called his paper the Superior Tribune, and according to one historian, “gave the city good service, under discouraging conditions, urging the people who controlled the destiny of the place to ‘get a move on,’ and throw off the lethargy that possessed them.” In Duluth, city founders had become frustrated with The Minnesotian, published by Dr. Thomas Foster, who had become highly critical of a group of civic leaders including Mayor J. B. Culver he thought corrupt and dubbed “The Ring.” In Philadelphia, Duluth’s chief financier Jay Cooke was paying attention, noting that Mitchel had given the people of Superior “some pretty good advice.” He suggested to Culver and his compatriots that it would be “a good stroke to import  [Mitchell]” to Duluth. Walter Van Brunt recounted what happened next: “We entered into secret negotiations to bring Mitchell and his paper over to Duluth. Quickly and quietly, at dead of night, we took Mitchell and his outfit, including cases, to Duluth. … If we had been caught by the good citizens of Superior we would have been hanged on the nearest trees.” Mitchel would later recall that his decision to move the paper “incensed the people of Superior, owing to the intensely bitter feeling then existing there towards Duluth; in those days the man from Superior who would cast his lot with Duluth was regarded as a traitor to Superior.”

Robert Mitchell, editor of the original Duluth Tribune, photographed in 1894. (Image: University of Minnesota Duluth Kathryn A. Martin Library Archives and Special Collections)