View of the harbor from above, possibly from Skyline Drive. The long, low Northern Pacific Railroad freight sheds are between Minnesota and Industrial slips. A laker is in Minnesota Slip. The coal dock area will be the construction site for the Duluth Arena Auditorium in 1963. Hearding Island is off Minnesota Point in the harbor. The island is the uninhabited site that has been called Bird Island by Park Point residents and Harbor Island by Duluth Bird Club members. The name Hearding Island is for William Hellins Hearding (England, 1826-1893, Milwaukee) who surveyed the Duluth-Superior harbor in 1861 as assigned by Captain (later a general in the Civil War) George C. Meade. The survey, completed in a little over two months, included the St. Louis River up to Fond du Lac, and the bay including Minnesota Point and the mouth of the Nemadji River. Rice's Point is at the middle left of the image showing a number of grain elevators.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
Duluth harbor looking at the waterfront, the hillside beyond and the Canal Park area abutting the bridge. At the left on the waterfront are warehouse district buildings and remaining North Western Fuel Company coal docks before you reach slips and Canal Park businesses. At the center of the image is a light building, Hotel Duluth, at Superior Street and Third Avenue East that opened in May 1925. The bay side view of Minnesota Point is at the right with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers vessel yard facility.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
View from the harbor looking toward the Duluth downtown business district and the hillside. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers vessel yard is at the right. The U.S. Amry Corps of Engineers Building is framed by the Aerial Lift Bridge whose span is raised for the exit of an approaching ore boat. The ore boat is parallel to the new Arena Auditorium, just opened August 1966. The excursion boat business is at the corner of the Arena and Minnesota Slip. The pyramid shaped roof ofthe Pietro Belluschi designed copper top church, First Methodist, at Central Entrance and Skyline Drive is visible. It was completed in 1966. Canal Park is still industrial but will become a tourist destination following redevelopment in the 1980s. The South Breakwater Inner Light Tower or the Canal Park lighthouse is at the far right.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
This image stretches from the ore docks at 33rd Avenue West to about Eighth Avenue East, incorporating downtown Duluth and portions of the East Hillside, Minnesota Point, Superior, and the Superior harbor. A laker has just passed under the Aerial Lift Bridge and is heading in to the Duluth harbor. Grain elevators on Rice's Point are above the vessel. In the center of the photo is Hotel Duluth, just below what is now called the corner of the lake, with Fitger's Brewery to the left.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
Minnesota Slip (water), on some 1920s maps called Lake Avenue Slip, is bounded by the Northern Pacific Railway Dock No. 6, and the businesses and warehouses on the harbor edge of Canal Park. The Marshall-Wells water towers are a feature standing tall next to the DeWitt Seitz Company building that stands today. The DeWitt-Seitz Co., whose plant, factory, warehouse and offices were at 390 S. Lake Avenue, was one of Duluth's prosperous businesses. The company, organized in 1905 by Henry F. Seitz and C E. DeWitt, manufactured all grades of mattresses and box springs, and included wholesale and jobbing of furniture and floor coverings. The DeWitt-Seitz best grade mattress and box spring, known as the Sanomade, carried the slogan "Remember the Name, the Rest is Easy." It was used and advertised all over the country. Its wholesale furniture and jobbing business covered Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and Michigan, North Dakota and parts of South Dakota and Montana. Including salesmen, the company employed a total of 60 persons in its nine story building that still stands as the DeWitt-Seitz Market Place in Canal Park. F. S. Kelly Furniture Co. bought the furniture stock of the DeWitt-Seitz Co in June of 1961. DeWitt-Seitz continued manufacturing mattresses and reorganized the firm, but the mattress company was sold in 1962.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
This view shows light the industrial Canal Park area at the left as you approach the Aerial Bridge and the 1966 completed Duluth Arena Auditorium at the center with its expansive parking lot. Sailboats and small pleasure craft are in the harbor. Fifth Avenue West overpass is at the far right. Note that Canal Park was not a tourist destination until the 1980s. It was zoned as a light industrial site for decades.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
The Duluth Yacht Club provided Scenic Rides. The Duluth Yacht Basin on the bayside of Park Point or Minnesota Point, near Tenth Avenue, was originally owned by Julius Barnes. It was subsequently owned by A. B. Hargrave. Hargrave sold it to the Lakehead Boat Basin, Incorporated in May 1959. The formal, brief, Duluth Yacht Club organized in 1890 and incorporated in 1905. It was distinct from the Duluth Boat Club but was absorbed by the Boat Club in 1909. The Lakehead investors were making improvements in 1959 and developed two areas. One was for outboard runabouts the other for cruiser operations. The Lakehead company would sell new and used yachts and boats.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
This is the lower side of Superior street between Third Avenue West on the left and approaching Fourth Avenue West on the right. The buildings left to right are Lonsdale at 300, Alworth at 306-308, Siewart's 310, Irving Moore Memorial 312, Torrey 314-316, St. Louis Hotel 318. If we could see a little further toward Fourth the Providence building would be near the corner. The St. Louis hotel was razed and the Medical Arts building constructed in its place in 1932.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
The businesses and housing of the East End are visible in this wide view facing west. Superior Street, East First Street and East Second Street run diagonally from left to right in the lower right quadrant of the image. In the distance beyond the Lift Bridge is Rice's point.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
The businesses and housing of the East End are visible in this wide view facing west. Superior Street, East First Street and East Second Street run diagonally from left to right in the lower half of the image.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
The Duluth harbor is frozen over and snow covered, but the lake is still open. It is very rare for Lake Superior to freeze fully. Which ever way the wind blows the lake ice shifts. Lake ice piles up on Minnesota Point or moves out into the lake or onto the northeast segments of shore. It changes every minute. This is a terrific view of the shape of Canal Park in the foreground and the Point as it extends toward Wisconsin. The U.S. Naval Reserve Training Center is at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Minnesota Avenue on the Point. Thirteenth is where the road, Minnesota Avenue, jogs to the right. The structure at the right is the Arena Auditorium (will be added to and renamed the DECC in 1987) and Pioneer Hall. The feature in the harbor off of Minnesota Point is the snow covered Hearding Island. The skywalk from downtown Duluth to the arena through Pioneer Hall is known as the "Northwest Passage."
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections