Postcards from Duluth’s West End … not West Duluth
A recent post on Perfect Duluth Day featured a “Postcard from the West End of Duluth” that was properly captioned by the postcard company. The postcard shown above, however, shows a similar scene and is captioned as “West Duluth, Minn.” (more…)
Missing Person: Jacob Lavoie
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating 21-year-old Jacob Michael Lavoie. He was last seen at Grandma’s Sports Garden in Canal Park on Saturday, Aug. 31, at around midnight, and early on the morning of Sept. 1.
Lavoie is a white male, 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing approximately 150 pounds, with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. He might be wearing a black Nike baseball hat, red/salmon long-sleeve shirt and jeans. Anyone who has information about Lavoie’s whereabouts is encouraged to contact the Duluth Police Department Juvenile Services Unit at 218-730-5560, or call 911. (more…)
Duluth Seaway Portorama
The Duluth Public Library’s Vintage Duluth blog recently published a retrospective on the Duluth Seaway Portarama, an annual summer festival sponsored by the Duluth Jaycees from 1959 to 1969. The modern day relevancy, as the post notes, is that in February the Minnesota House of Representatives repealed sections 333.50, 333.51 and 333.52 of Statute 19-1642, “eliminating crime of unauthorized use of the name and mark “portorama.” (more…)
Iwen wins prize
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports that UW-Superior professor Jayson Iwen has won a $5,000 poetry prize. (more…)
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #18
Here’s another card from the Duluth Trivia game. (more…)
Postcard from the West End of Duluth
This postcard was mailed Sept. 2, 1939, to Donna Buhler of Toledo, Ohio. Her parents had just arrived in Duluth. (more…)
Denfeld High School Football Team of 1944
Here’s a peek at what the Denfeld Hunters gridiron crew looked like 75 years ago, in the fall of 1944. That’s legendary coach Walt Hunting up top and center. (more…)
Lake Superior Aquaman’s Duluth
https://drive.google.com/open?id=13xUzaotRXCX4Q5tX_01IiJbDvUmJEYW5&usp=sharing
I first launched this sort-of virtual tour of the area in January 2018. I just updated it with more than 30 new features, including more than 130 new photos, several video links, links to news articles, the paths of my various “skate patrols” and “flamingo patrols,” The People’s Free Skate, a greater spread through the region, and all my latest activities. Enjoy.
Mind your Business
On my way to see Burning, the Korean movie adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story, playing at Zeitgeist Zinema in January, I heard a woman yell “Somebody help me!” from the bus stop. I couldn’t see her well; she had made herself small, the way a rabbit might make itself small for fear of a predator who has entered the garden, too.
A man was looming over her while she cowered against the wall of the Greysolon Plaza. From behind, I couldn’t see much of him, either. He wore a jacket that looked not-quite warm enough; his agitated movements were likely keeping him warm. I felt my city instincts kick in.
I’ve lived in a city all my life: Milwaukee until I was 22, St. Paul until I was 32. Duluth is the smallest community I have ever lived in, and most days, it barely feels like a city. In the quarters of a city where poor people live, anytime someone calls “help,” I think, we check it out. We need each other.
Someone called for help. I needed to check it out. I started to cross the street, putting on my most booming voice.
“What’s going on over there?” (more…)
Superior Entry Lighthouse on Wisconsin Point sold
Wisconsin’s Superior Lighthouse sold for $159,000 - Duluth News Tribune | News, weather, and sports from Duluth, Minnesota
After more than a month of bidding, the lighthouse was sold.
superiortelegram.com
The century-old Superior Entry Lighthouse on Wisconsin Point sold for $159,000 to Steven Broudy of San Francisco, Calif. The new owner will have to maintain it. (more…)
Selective Focus: Quinn Montgomery
This week, we feature the youngest Selective Focus artist so far, Quinn Montgomery. She has been drawing caricatures of celebrities. Many are from shows that she most likely can’t watch for quite awhile. We get some background info from her dad, Derek Montgomery (previously featured in Selective Focus). For now, you can keep up with Quinn’s art career via her dad’s Instagram Feed. Be sure to check the second picture in each Instagram post to see the reference material with the finished drawing.
DM: I started documenting our daughter Quinn’s drawings as just a way to remember some of the things she was doing at her age, which is four years old. I found her style of drawing–large head with The Nightmare Before Christmas’ Jack Skellington-length arms and legs–as really humorous and fun. She’s always been very perceptive and expressive and the drawings are just an extension of that. I work from home and Quinn would bring me drawings every day of stuff she saw around the house or outside to cheer me up because apparently I needed that? I don’t know, but I always appreciated seeing her take on the world out here in Lakeside.
(more…)
Then and Now: Blue Crab Bar / OMC Smokehouse
The above photo was shot on Aug. 29, 2009 at the Blue Crab Bar, 1909 W. Superior St. Today it is the location of OMC Smokehouse. The photo below, shot Aug. 29, 2019, attempts to replicate the scene. (more…)
Miss you Rick Boo.
Feel free to share your Rick stories in the comments.
Postcards from the Clarkson Coal & Dock Co.
This undated postcard, published by the Duluth Photo and Engraving Company, shows the Clarkson Coal & Dock Company on Duluth’s waterfront. (more…)
Latinos in Duluth
Luisa Pierce and Teresa Dawson reflect on Latino presence and contributions in Duluth.
The Slice: Edward H. Ojard
Two Harbors-based composer Edward H. Ojard has published two music CDs with a third in the works. He is 10 years old.
In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #17
Another card from the Duluth Trivia game. (more…)
White Iron Band – “Drunk in Duluth”
Ely-formed and Twin Cities-based White Iron Band released a Duluth ditty on its 2005 outlaw country album Take it off the Top. (more…)
PDD Quiz: August 2019
August is drawing to a close; how many of this month’s headlines do you recall? Quiz on to find out!
The next PDD quiz, on Duluth in literature, will be published on Sept. 15. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by Sept. 8. (more…)
Book Cover: Entrance to East High School, Spring 1963
The setting for this fictional book is Duluth. The main characters attended East High School. The author grew up on Arrowhead Road.
A thoroughly Duluth-centric book. Read a sample at Amazon. The download version is 99 cents.
Be forewarned; this isn’t another high school reunion puff-piece.
