Photos
Select Images from Denfeld’s 1938 Oracle
Fly high, Duluth! Senior Ralph Eisenach takes a running broad jump.
(more…)
Introducing the Everyday Duluth 2011 photo calendar by Naomi Yaeger-Bischoff
Hi, Naomi Yaeger-Bischoff here. It’s soon holiday gift-giving season, and also the time of year to get calendars for next year, so it’s time for me to put an official post on Perfect Duluth Day about a personal project I put together to showcase my photography, the Everyday Duluth calendar. (You could say this is a shameless plug.)
Here is the story behind the calendar.
See a link to see a pdf of the calendar Everyday Duluth Calendar 2011 Naomi Yaeger
(more…)
Trespassing at UMD’s Old Main in 1992
One summer night in 1992, when I was 19 years old, I came home from doing something forgettable and found three of my friends waiting for me. They said I should grab a flashlight and come with them on an adventure. (more…)
Google map update
I just noticed that a new satellite image of my neighborhood is on google maps. The area used to be fuzzy and green; it was hard to see the houses clearly. Now we can tell that two people were getting out of my minivan when the image of my house was taken. It was taken sometime this summer.
The photo posted here is the Hartley Nature Center parking lot, not far away. The screen-grab doesn’t look as clear as it does originally. Maybe your house has been updated, too?
Ghosts of Halloween Past
A pair of photos from the Boogieman Project — the NorShor Theatre’s Halloween party on Oct. 28, 2000. (more…)
Halloween banners
If you’ve got fabulous Halloween photos, it’s Halloween banner time. But hurry, ‘cuz I shoulda had this call out a couple weeks ago. We’ll start putting the Halloween banners up as soon as we get enough to rotate.
Halloween banners must follow the same guidelines as the other banners. Basically, the photos have to be cropped to 960 pixels wide by 167 pixels high. The Perfect Duluth Day logo will be added by PDD’s art department.
Send to banners@perfectduluthday.com
I know it’s not the Twins but …
At least it’s not the Yankees. I’ve waited 39 years for this. Dad would be proud.
Young at Heart Records on GoJohnnyGo.com
Nice trip down memory lane with some snapshots of Young at Heart Records from 1996 and recollections to fill them out. The pictures themselves are just snapshots, as I said, but upon close examination they do capture the feel and the spirit of that place nicely. I just wish there were more of them. Click the image to go to the post and see it all in context. (more…)
Last Place of Commerce
I miss the days when the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce headquarters was next to the Last Place on Earth. That was synergy at its finest.
The photo above is from roughly 1993 1996. Last Place hadn’t quite finished moving in. I think the two were neighbors for at least 10 years before the chamber hightailed it to First Street.
The Seaway Market in Norton Park
Someone — I think her name was Gloria — posted this picture of the Seaway Market on Facebook a few months back and asked if anyone remembered the place. I saved the image, but can’t find the Facebook post anymore.
Here’s the deal with the Seaway Market:
(more…)
Historic Lift Bridge featured on Shorpy
Here is a really neat photo looking back into the history of Duluth. The first version of our beloved Lift Bridge didn’t really lift at all. It initially was built in 1905 as a very rare transporter bridge. It wasn’t until 1930 that it was converted into the form we know today.
Inside Denfeld’s Renovation
This is the view looking up from inside the new main entrance to Denfeld High School. The main floor of the new addition connects to the old building through the auditorium lobby. The main floor of the addition will include a new cafeteria and common area, administrative offices and media center.
(more…)
The Rentola
Here are two historic photos of the Rentola, a Finnish boarding house at 4 N. 59th Ave. W., in West Duluth. The top photo is from Karl Hagglund, whose grandmother was a maid at the Rentola. The next photo is from 1961, courtesy of the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center. So the story goes, there was an old steam house nearby where Rentola residents took saunas. (more…)
West Duluth 100 Years Ago
The photo above is from 1910. It was almost certainly shot from North 59th Avenue West, near where Tacony Street intersects it. I tried to replicate it with the modern shot below, but trees, fences and houses kept me from shooting at the same spot, and the view is much more limited.
Behind all the trees across the street is a rock outcropping that matches the one in the 1910 photo.
(more…)
Don’t they ever stop migrating?
Shawn Nicholas made it as a featured image in today’s Gizmodo post about photo composites.

Hawk Weekend in Duluth
Debbie Waters, education director at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory, shows off a red-tailed hawk during Hawk Weekend activities today.
Upset Duluth: In case you missed it
It took a few days to pull together, and the link was kind of buried in the Upset Duluth thread, but in response to demand a gallery of portraits has been started over at the News Tribune Attic. It includes the 1995 photo above, by the News Tribune’s Bob King, of a Superior resident concerned about the condition of the sidewalk near his home. There are photos of people without concerns, too.
I’ll keep adding to it if there’s reader interest in seeing more.
Upset Duluth
Every month or so there is a story in the Duluth News Tribune about a community member or group of people upset about something. The story usually features a photo like the one above, shot by Bob King.
I don’t mean to make light of any of the issues these people are upset about, or be critical at all of the photography. Just the opposite. What I’m saying is, for some reason I love these photos. Seriously. (more…)
Wooden arch from Duluth’s Spalding Hotel at State Fair
I didn’t ask around, with the crowd as thick as it was, but I’m assuming this big wooden arch must be the one from the Spalding Hotel that was retrofitted into O’Gara’s fairgrounds restaurant in St. Paul.
(more…)
Minnesota State Fair attendance record
Saturday, Sept. 4, was a record setter at the Minnesota State Fair. In that single day, 234,384 people attended.
(more…)
Cormier Dry Goods of West Duluth
Left:
Cormier Dry Goods, 6227 Grand Ave., West Duluth, in 1907.
(Northeast Minnesota Historical Center photo.)
Right:
The same building in 2010, now entirely apartments.
(Perfect Duluth Day photo.)
Cormier Dry Goods stayed in business well into the 1930s. Gustave Cormier was the proprietor and lived upstairs. By the mid-1930s, J.A. Lundeen’s shoe store shared the building.
Lost Superior: St. Joseph Orphan Home
I found some amazing pictures of the chapel in St. Joseph Orphan Home. It was mostly referred to as “the orphanage” and was located just to the east of the Mariner Mall in Superior.
See the photos at the Badger Catholic blog.






















