KDAL sells the Duluth-Superior-Iron Range market
KDAL 610 AM is a commercial talk radio station in Duluth, owned and operated by Midwest Communications. There was also a KDAL-TV, which later became KDLH and then merged with KBJR. (more…)
Selective Focus: Mana Bear Bolton’s Paintings and Murals
Mana Bear Bolton live painting on Tower Avenue in Superior in August 2021. (Photo by Jess Morgan)
Between colorful murals, acrylic paintings of beloved pets, playful watercolors and flow arts, Mana Bear has been making the Twin Ports region and beyond more beautiful for nearly a decade. Learn more about Mana’s work in the interview below. (more…)
Media Excavations: Ojibway Publications
Well, I’m not sure how to feel about posting this advert pulled from the Media History Digital Library, because the name of the company bears no connection to the people, that I can tell …
… but Ojibway Publications was a nationally significant trade-magazine publisher located in Duluth. (more…)
Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural: Art in This Present Moment
The Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural in Duluth, led by artist Moira Villiard, visually tells the story of a community and the descendants of Chief Buffalo, remembered as a prominent figure that led the Anishinaabe to permanent resettlement in northern Minnesota. Started in 2019, this project also features work from other artists such as Michelle Defoe (Red Cliff Ojibwe), Awanigiizhik Bruce (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe) and Sylvia Houle (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe).
Video via the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, a community foundation that serves all of Minnesota with nearly $2 billion in charitable assets for community good.
Duluth, a Cosmopolitan City
Advertising campaigns for Duluth’s KDAL radio in the trade press were intent on revealing the cosmopolitan dimensions of Duluth. These ads both reveal Duluth’s unique industries and reveal that some of Duluth’s retail, especially, can stand shoulder to shoulder with other major urban areas. (more…)
Trampled by Turtles with Alan Sparhawk – “When I Go Deaf”
Alan Sparhawk joined Trampled by Turtles for a performance of the Low song “When I Go Deaf” two weeks ago at the Armory in Minneapolis. Gina Nagler Smith captured the performance in this video. (more…)
Media Excavations: Duluth-Superior Television Revolution
This ad campaign, luring businesses to advertise on TV in Duluth/Superior uses a picture of supporters of the Revolutionary government of Cuba manning a machine gun post overlooking one of the main streets, Zapata Avenue, into the heart of Havana, Jan. 4, 1959. (more…)
Loiselle Liquor ends 88-year run; new owners plan name change
Loiselle Liquor Store, 413 E. Fourth St., was owned and operated by the Loiselle family for 88 years. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske).
The oldest liquor store in Duluth has changed hands and will take on a new name for the first time in nearly nine decades.
Loiselle Liquor Store, 413 E. Fourth St., was sold by the Loiselle family this spring to Matthew Krueger and Katherine Eagle of Cloquet. St. Louis County property tax records showed the sale price at $360,000 for the two-story building — which was constructed in 1893 as the Goering Block. (more…)
“They Want Culture but Won’t Watch It”
Radio and television audiences in Duluth were surveyed in 1961. While the general demographics could be useful for media historians, it might surprise the readers of Perfect Duluth Day that, in 1961, the category of “first generation Scandinavian immigrants” was statistically significant in a survey like this. We are not so far away from the days when Duluth was a rich community built from immigrants, with all the magic and tension that follows from immigration.
Information from Media History Digital Library. (more…)
Colleen “Boss Mama” Myhre with New Salty Dog at Radio Waves
Colleen “Boss Mama” Myhre and New Salty Dog teamed up at the 15th annual Radio Waves Music Festival in Grand Marais back in September. The video was shot by Bear Witness Media for WTIP North Shore Community Radio, with an audio mix by Will Moore.
Media Excavations: KDAL and WEBC
Briefly, Duluth-Superior radio stations KDAL and WEBC advertised together. I found these joint ads while scouring a database of media trade publications. (more…)
Media Excavations: WEBC
I’ve been excavating media magazines for references to Duluth. Some of them are adverts for WEBC 560 AM, which is presently branded at “Northland Fan” and broadcasts Duluth-area sports interspersed with statewide sports talk from KFAN in Minneapolis and national sports talk from FOX Sports Radio. (more…)
Great Lakes Now episode: “Great Lakes Wildlife”
This contains several segments including one about Enbridge Line 3 (@17:15), and a mention of Duluth’s “Water is Life” festival (@24:58).
Lord, to be 35 Forever
I wish I could remember more about the first Hold Steady concert I saw. I know it was in 2005 at the Duluth Pizza Lucé. I know I went alone. I’ll never forget how Lucé felt during shows back then. But beyond that I’ve got almost nothing. No memory of specific songs they played or how big they sounded in that small room or what happened in my body and brain while it was going on.
I can’t even remember why I went. I wasn’t a Hold Steady fan. For most of 2004 I’d seen music magazine stories about how supposedly great they were, and that was my reason for ignoring them. I was early-30s going on 15 in some ways. One way was that I resisted music other people liked, as I’d done since junior high, because how would anyone know how special I was if I didn’t oppose things other people supported? (Ask me how I still feel about U2, REM, Faith No More, and INXS.) Maybe I went because curiosity wore down my resistance and misjudgment. Maybe I’m remembering it wrong and I’d been listening to them for a while.
A fan site says the show was on March 12 (a Saturday). I think I remember Lucé being full but not as packed as I’d seen it for the Black-eyed Snakes, Brother Ali, Dillinger Four, or Trampled by Turtles. Not chaotic like those shows. I think it was for sure the first time I’d heard any Hold Steady songs. Did I get bored? Sometimes that happens if I don’t know the songs, even when a band is good. Could I make out any lyrics? I had to like the actual music, which sounds like classic rock, punk, power pop, and other genres the Gen X music omnivores in the band would have inhaled while growing up. (more…)
The War Widow from Duluth Who is Worried About Frances
Forty years ago today — Dec. 3, 1982 — the dramatic film Frances premiered in American theaters. In addition to featuring Cloquet native Jessica Lange in the leading role as Frances Farmer, the film also includes a reference to Duluth. (more…)
Duluth Central High School 1920 Zenith Yearbook
Archive.org has the 1920 Duluth Central High School yearbook, Zenith, available for perusal online.
“Bird Love Song” by Cory Coffman
Duluth’s Cory Coffman composed what he calls “this super cheesy love song from a musical that doesn’t exist.” Alexander Sandor is on piano, Adam Sippola sings and Alyssa Johnson of Blind Spot Creatives handles the video work.
Select Images from the 1941 Denfeld Oracle
The Internet Archive hosts the 1941 edition of the Denfeld Oracle. My friends’ grandparents — those are the folks I am looking for in here, I think. And a nod to “then and now.” (more…)
Climate>Duluth: Bruce Jennings of Vanderbilt University
Climate>Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews Bruce Jennings of Vanderbilt University. Jennings speaks to Health Policy and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at VUMC, his former professor and mentor William Patrick Ophuls, Economics for the Anthropocene as well as the Centers for Humans and Nature.
Postcard from West Superior Street at Sixth Avenue East
Among the legible signs in this undated postcard: Hill Hotel, Hamm’s Beep, bus station, Holland Hotel, Lyceum Theatre, Spalding Hotel, Saratoga Hotel, Hotel Tavern, Dove Clothing Store.
One Book Northland 2023: The Wolf’s Trail
The Wolf’s Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves is the One Book Northland community read title for 2023. Written by Thomas D. Peacock and published by Duluth-based Holy Cow! Press, it’s about Ojibwe teaching and the truths of Ojibwe existence as seen through the words of a wolf elder as he “talks story” to wolf pups. (more…)
Local author counts down the days to book launch
Hi. I am an author from Duluth. I wrote two books that take place in Duluth. The second is coming out Dec. 1. It’s called Order From Chaos. (more…)
Standard Salt and Cement Company
The most amazing thing new Duluth residents don’t realize is what Canal Park looked like just 40 years ago.
Archive.org includes a catalog for Standard Salt and Cement Company, a business that used to be located in Canal Park. (more…)
PDD Quiz: November 2022
Shake off the post-Thanksgiving malaise with a little current events trivia!
A holiday-themed PDD quiz will come your way on Dec. 11. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by Nov. 7. (more…)
A Psychogeographical Map of Duluth, 2004
I drew this conceptual map of Duluth’s arts-and-music-scene in 2004, then filed it away for 18 years. The details may only interest old-school scenester hipsters, but the broad strokes reflect my thinking on what makes Duluth cool, and the nature of scenes as social units. The word “psychogeographical” refers here to the artistic arrangement of my little sociological analysis.
Local rocker Nat Harvie once observed to me that old-school Duluthians gush about these bygone days with little provocation. True. I moved to Duluth in 1998 in what is widely regarded as its heyday, its coming-to-awareness-of-itself as a music-and-arts scene. This can be roughly correlated with the formation of the Ripsaw News, now long defunct. That storied rag began in opposition to the Reader as the premier alternative newsweekly and we were off to the races. I remember an early Ripsaw meeting with Brad Nelson and Cord Dada and a room of creatives, and the question was, “Who can do what?” I said, “I am a writer and cartoonist,” and I was in.
Duluth had everything I wanted in its vital percolations. I graphed the scene as I saw it, below: (more…)