This undated postcard shows Duluth’s Aerial Lift Bridge, ships on the lake, the Duluth Arena-Auditorium, parts of the Downtown and Canal Park areas and more circa perhaps 1980 or so.
One element of note to regular Perfect Duluth Day readers: The Minnesota Power and Light sub station at 410 W. Commerce St., which was part of a lengthy discussion in a Mystery Photo a while back, is in this photo.
8 thoughts on “Postcard from a View on Duluth’s Hillside”
It’s just a guess, but it seems possible that photo was taken near the beginning of the American Federation of Grain Millers strike, which lasted for twelve weeks starting in July of 1979 and led to a pile up of ships awaiting cargo. It matches up quite well with a photo on Minnesota Reflections from nearly the same perspective but taken in the fall near the end of the strike. The caption on that photo notes that you can clearly see the orange bottoms of the empty, cargoless vessels, just as you can in the postcard photo.
Indeed, I would say you are on to something, Mattijs. There is a slight difference in the perspective of the two photos, but I can’t see anything that indicates they were shot in a different general time in history.
Any idea what these buildings are?
I believe those are warehouses dedicated to the packaging and distribution of Jeno’s Pizza Rolls and other fine foods, as they are connected to the back of the Paulucci Building. They were probably taken down after he took all the production jobs to Ohio in 1982.
The PDD Mystery Photo of the Minnesota Slip Drawbridge appears to show the larger of those warehouses being dismantled in the 1990s.
I can’t tell if Pioneer Hall is part of this photo. Pioneer Hall was added in 1976. So maybe this would help with figuring out the date, timeline of the photo?
Yeah, with all the fuzziness and buildings in the way, it’s difficult see the Pioneer Hall area, but I think the fuzzier second photo shows the Pioneer Hall rooftop. It looks more like a parking lot than a roof, but it’s relationship to the water suggests that surface is above ground level.
Love the history on Jeno’s and the food packaging industry in Canal Park … I never knew. The mention of a chopstick factory in Hibbing surprised me (MPR story). I lived there a few years and never heard of it. I found this story: “Chopsticks Factory Closes.”
I wonder which build in Hibbing housed the chopstick factory?