West Duluth
Sledding Duluth’s Avenues in 1921
One hundred years ago there were far fewer cars on Duluth’s streets, but it was still considered dangerous to sled down the city’s steep avenues. So Duluth Police Chief Warren E. Pugh surveyed the city and selected a few recommended avenues that posed “the least danger to life and limb,” according to the Duluth Herald of Nov. 22, 1921. (more…)
Kingsbury Creek has a new bridge, snowmobile trail restored
The bridge over Kingsbury Creek in West Duluth that was washed away in the Historic Summer Solstice Flood Disaster of 2012 has been replaced. The snowmobile route that runs across the bridge and snakes through the hillside south of Interstate 35, roughly from Keane Creek to Knowlton Creek, has also been restored after years of neglect. The lost ridgeline snowmobile route is part of the St. Louis River Corridor snowmobile trail system and links to the Hermantown trail system.
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division and the Hermantown Night Riders are hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the bridge on Dec. 17.
Postcard from the Central Motel in West Duluth
This postcard of the Central Motel was mailed Sept. 20, 1956 — 65 years ago today. The address, 24 N. Central Ave., is now greenspace across Main Street from Irving Park. The land is controlled by the idled Duluth paper mill, which was sold by Verso Corporation in May to ST Paper. (more…)
Mystery Photo: Mr. & Mrs. Burchell
From the back of this cabinet card photo we know the subjects are Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Burchell or Burehell, married Aug. 26, 1891. They were also presumably residents of West Duluth. The photo is from the Downtown Duluth studio of John R. Zweifel. (more…)
Postcard from Bethany Children’s Home in 1916
This handsome structure at 4000 W. Ninth St. was originally the home of Alfred and Jane Merritt. They sold it to the Swedish Lutheran Church of West Duluth the same year this postcard was mailed, 1916, and it became an orphanage. The home was destroyed by fire on Oct. 10, 1920. (more…)
Postcard from the Alger-Smith Sawmill
This postcard was mailed July 29, 1911. By then the Alger-Smith Sawmill in West Duluth had been dismantled following a decade-long decline in the sawmilling industry.
Anyone with a century-old garage in West Duluth likely owns scraps of the Alger-Smith mill. “There must be 100 garages in West Duluth that have been built this summer out of lumber taken during the process of dismantling,” the company’s president told the Duluth Herald in a story that appeared in the Sept. 22, 1920 edition. “Every day or two some person inquires for the lumber, and when we ask him what it is for he says, ‘A garage.’ Our lumber must have built almost all of the garages in West Duluth this summer.” (more…)
West Duluth’s Allyndale Motel circa 1971
The Allyndale Motel has been in operation at 510 N. 66th Ave. W. since 1952. The backside of the postcard image above boasts the motel’s features circa the 1970s: “Overlooking Duluth – Free TV – Room Phones – Tubs and Showers – Large Units – Individually controlled Hot Water Heat.”
Charlie Parr-king Lot
Charlie Parr performed in the parking lot outside Wussow’s Concert Cafe during Pete Fest Tuesday night, playing his unique brand of Dumpster blues. The festival continues through Saturday.
West Duluth kids rarely strayed from neighborhood in 1920s
An article in the Duluth Herald of April 28, 1921 — one hundred years ago today — calls attention to how western Duluth kids seldom ventured to the center of town, much less to the eastern side. (more…)
Then and Now: Looking Down 43rd Avenue West
The top half of the graphic above is from a real estate advertisement in the Oct. 22, 1920 edition of the Duluth Herald, promoting lots on 43rd Avenue West near Eighth Street in West Duluth. The bottom half is an attempt to capture the modern perspective via Google Maps. In the modern view, trees block three of the four homes shown in the 1920 view, but one of them can been seen and the other three, though not in view, are still standing. (more…)
Stewart Shoe Company of West Duluth
One hundred years ago the Stewart Shoe Company was on its way out and American Bakery Company was on its way in at 324 N. Central Ave. in West Duluth. The building there was constructed in 1894 and today is occupied by Wussow’s Concert Cafe, which opened under the name Beaner’s Central in 1999. (more…)
West Duluth Gardens of 1920
There seems to be a gardening boom in 2020, obviously due to more people staying home during the pandemic. West Duluth has a bit of a reputation for having had numerous gardens a century ago that slowly petered out in more recent decades. According to an article in the Aug. 7, 1920 Duluth Herald, gardening in West Duluth got a big boost from the neighborhood’s commercial club. (more…)
Jade Fountain tiki bar opens Aug. 7
The new Jade Fountain tiki bar has its grand opening scheduled for Friday, Aug. 7, at 7 p.m. The space will be limited to 50 patrons at a time due to the ongoing threat of COVID-19. Drinks will be pre-made for additional safety. (more…)
Duluth Cross City Trail 2020 Update: Segment 2 nearly complete
The River Route segment of Duluth’s Cross City Trail has been under construction this summer in West Duluth. It should be paved and ready for bicyclists in a matter of weeks. (more…)
Classic photos of Lake Superior Zoo and Kingsbury Creek
This photo of an elk is dated 1926.
Duluth’s municipal zoo opened in 1923 after the city council gave a small piece of land to print-shop owner Bert Onsgard and hired him as zookeeper. He was paid $1 per year for tending to a white-tailed deer and a few native birds. The zoo would eventually expand to cover 16 acres of land surrounding Kingsbury Creek in Fairmount Park, and hold hundreds of animals from around the world. (more…)
Mystery Photo: Fourth of July Parade in West Duluth
The written caption on this postcard tells us pretty much everything we need to know, except for one critical thing: What year was this? (more…)
Iconic Jade Fountain will see new life in West Duluth
Kai Soderberg stands outside the Jade Fountain restaurant at 305 N. Central Ave. in West Duluth. Soderberg is leasing the space where he will open a tiki bar this summer. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
A long-running and largely unchanged Chinese restaurant — which closed for almost five years — will be reborn under new ownership as a tiki lounge when nightlife returns to normal in Duluth. (more…)
Ripped at the Kom-on-Inn in 2000
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago he visited the Kom-on-Inn in West Duluth and published this report for the April 5, 2000 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper.]
Granted, it does not take much to amaze me, but when I entered the Kom-on-Inn my spine just about shot out of the top of my head. I had always been under the impression that the Kom-on-Inn was a boring bar that was empty most of the time. But nothing could be further from the truth. It was … I don’t even know where to begin, so let me just walk you through the place.
First of all, it is important to know that everyone—every last person in the bar—was smoking a cigarette. I am not exaggerating when I say it was difficult to see across the room. At the very back of the bar, where I came in, a bunch of Tommy Boys talked on cellular telephones and shot pool with heavily hair-sprayed and lip-linered girls drinking bottles of Mountain Dew. Apparently they were stationed there to give newcomers like me the wrong impression of the place, for just past them, everything became drastically different. (more…)
After months lying in wait, Boreal House open in West Duluth
Katie Fast, left, and Julie LaTourelle stand outside their new drinking establishment last summer, before remodeling work began. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
Duluthians Katie Fast and Julie LaTourelle will open the doors to West Duluth’s newest drinking establishment at 3 p.m. today. The Boreal House at 330 N. 57th Ave. W. sits adjacent to the neighborhood’s oldest drinking establishment, the Kom-on-Inn. (more…)
R.I.P. Merritt Park Recreation Center Building
This week the field house at Merritt Park joined the growing list of historic West Duluth buildings demolished in recent years. The 2,016-square foot building was constructed in 1939. (more…)
The Slice: Tom Napoli’s Tortoise and Hare Mural
Artist Tom Napoli recreates Duluth on the side of the Tortoise and Hare Footwear store in West Duluth.
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.
West Duluth bar scene adding Boreal House
Katie Fast, left, and Julie LaTourelle stand outside 330 N. 57th Ave. W. The two women purchased the former home of RJ’s Coffee Den and plan to open a new bar in West Duluth. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
Two women plan to open a new bar later this fall in a West Duluth neighborhood that boasts some of the oldest drinking establishments in the city.
Katie Fast and Julie LaTourelle, operating as K & J Industries LLC, recently purchased the former RJ’s Coffee Den at 330 N. 57th Ave. W. The century-old building is being remodeled and is expected to reopen as the Boreal House in late November. (more…)
West Theater struggles through restoration, opens June 21
Work on the West Theater marquee continued on June 19, two days ahead of a grand opening event.
The West Theater looked nothing like its movie palace glory days when Duluth Reader publisher Bob Boone bought the building in 2016. (more…)