Urban Exploration

Inside the Leif Erikson Park Amphitheater

The latest video from Duluth Urbex explores the space under the stage at Leif Erikson Park‘s outdoor amphitheater. The structure, completed in 1928, was designed by Abraham Holstead and William Sullivan.

Exploring the Abandoned Boase Elementary School

Boase Elementary School in Hoyt Lakes, about 40 miles north of Duluth, was built in 1956 and has been abandoned since the last classes were held there in 2002. In the video above, Duluth Urbex explores the building’s crumbling classrooms.

Video Tour of Mariner Business Center in 2021

Brandon Novy produces videos of “dead, dying, or interesting malls (and anything related) in and around Minnesota” for the YouTube channel Yodeling Loon Retail. In 2021 he visited Mariner Business Center in Superior — formerly Mariner Mall — for his first video of a mall outside Minnesota.

Exploring Clark House Creek Tunnel

Duluth Urbex explores the underground creek beneath Cascade Park.

Exploring Upper Buckingham Creek

In a follow up to last month’s exploration of Buckingham Creek, Duluth Urbex tunnels into the upper section of the creek.

Exploring Santa Fe U.S. Mail Railway Post Car 57

Duluth Urbex takes a peek inside an abandoned railway post-office car in West Duluth.

Exploring Buckingham Creek

The latest look at Duluth’s underworld from Duluth Urbex explores Buckingham Creek, which flows through Enger Park and down Observation Hill into the St. Louis River.

Exploring Lower Brewery Creek Tunnel

Seven months ago Duluth Urbex published a winter video from the icy underground of the Brewery Creek drain tunnel. A new video, embedded above, explores the tunnel in summer conditions.

Exploring Oregon Creek Tunnel

Duluth Urbex presents an underground tour of Oregon Creek, which flows beneath the University of Minnesota Duluth campus and through the Endion neighoborhood to Lake Superior.

Graffiti Graveyard

The video by Shawn Donovan that previously was embedded here is no longer available.

Exploring the Cramer Tunnel

Duluth Urbex recently took an icy trudge through Minnesota’s longest train tunnel. The Cramer Tunnel, about 70 miles northeast of Duluth, connected the former LTV Steel Hoyt Lakes taconite plant with its ore dock at Taconite Harbor.

Duluth Underground Ice Tunnel

Trudge through the icy underground of the Brewery Creek drain tunnel in this new video from Duluth Urbex.

Exploring the Duluth Armory

Duluth Urbex was recently granted a tour of the Duluth Armory. Built at 1305 London Road in 1915, the armory served as a military training facility and also hosted concerts and events until 1978. (more…)

Exploring Nopeming Sanatorium

A few week’s back Duluth Urbex slithered through Nopeming, the former sanatorium located west of Duluth in Midway Township. The resulting video is a perfect primer for the Halloween creeps.

Exploring Haddad’s Cave

Where is Haddad’s Cave? What is Haddad’s Cave? Well, in the world of urban exploration, such details are sometimes closely held. This video hit YouTube yesterday on the Duluth Urbex channel.

Daisy Roller Mill in Superior

A post on photographer Dan Turner’s Substreet website takes a peek at Superior’s old East End Milling District.

Daisy was the last of the flour mills to close in the Twin Ports,” Turner writes. “It closed in the 1970s when Peavey moved its durum operations to a new mill in Hastings, Minnesota. Today the mill is unused, though a company uses the silos.

Cramer Tunnel in Lake County

About 70 miles northeast of Duluth, near Crosby Manitou State Park, is a unincorporated community named after its pioneer merchant, J.N. Cramer. There sits Minnesota’s longest train tunnel, connecting the former LTV Steel Hoyt Lakes taconite plant with its ore dock at Taconite Harbor. A recent post on photographer Dan Turner’s Substreet website features a collection if interesting summer and winter photos from the tunnel and surrounding area. (more…)

Inside Duluth’s Armory

Photographer Dan Turner’s latest adventure on his Substreet website shows off the gritty and crumbling Duluth Armory, including a basement shooting range. (more…)

Exploring the Superior Entry Lighthouse on Wisconsin Point

The latest adventure on the Substreet website takes readers inside the Superior Entry Lighthouse, where every step “happens with an echoing crunch.”

As for the view from the top: “For 180 degrees, there is nothing but water, clouds, and a beautiful sandy beach backgrounded by pine trees and dune grass.”

Drain Duluth

This is fascinating and frightening. It’s from “Draining Zenith City” a blog entry by Dan Turner, a photographer, urban explorer and historian. The name of his blog is Substreet. The picture here is Chester Creek, somewhere under the Rose Garden. Turner has also documented other places around Duluth and Superior, and industrial and abandoned spaces across the country.

Yoerg’s Brewery

On this date 165 years ago — July 6, 1849 — Bavarian immigrant Anthony Yoerg opened Minnesota’s first brewery in St. Paul.

Interesting side note on Yoerg’s Brewery: In 1871 the operation moved to a spot adjacent to the Lilydale caves. Yoerg used the natural caves to store his product, and added the phrase “cave-aged” to the label. There are a number of places online to read about Yoerg’s Brewery, but of particular interest is the Substreet underground history site, which profiles Yoerg’s lost cellars.
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Duluth’s “Underground Historian”

The SubStreet Underground website released one of it most compelling stories yesterday. It’s about the demolition of a St. Paul power station.

While the story is about St. Paul, the photographer/archivist/storyteller behind the project is Duluthian Dan “Glass.”

Trespassing at UMD’s Old Main in 1992

UMDOldMain2

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…)

Duluth’s Graffiti Graveyard

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAnghwJorvo

Video by Nathan Treanor.