Once upon a time I would not have guessed that I’d ever witness somebody stealing rhubarb, but yeah, that’s what this guy did behind our neighbors’ garage this afternoon. …
The Big E
Contra Karl Marx, history repeats itself, but both times as farce.
Apparently Duluth, Georgia is missing a giant plastic chicken. So the city named in homage to Proctor Knott’s big joke is stealing a page from Two Harbors.
In the interest of furthering the ongoing fascination with the “Duke of Duluth” on PDD [1][2] and in the broader Duluth community, I submit this 15 January 1908 clipping from the Duluth Weekly Herald. Given the description of the unfortunate Arthur J. Baird–“claimed to have acquired his nickname by reason of his hirsute adornment, his education and general demeanor“–it seems possible that he might in fact be the same man in the photograph Nemadji posted in 2010.
It would appear that some members of the local community, inspired by Nat M. Wills’ 1905 musical “The Duke of Duluth,” bestowed the mocking title on Baird, but that’s the limit of what I’ve (accidentally) found. Stay tuned for more fascinating updates if/when they appear.
I ran across this on the Library of Congress’s Flickr Commons photostream today and got curious. Although the original caption suggests that Bryant and King’s record was set “on ice,” the wheels on the skates the men are wearing make me skeptical–as does the background material on the Frank Bryant collection at the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center.
So, here goes: From 1913-1916, Duluthian Frank Bryant was a dominant competitive roller skater, holding a world championship in speed skating. The photo here depicts the 25 year-old Michigan native with St. Paulite Kelly, with whom he set a world record distance of 348 miles for a 24-hour two-man relay event–the Minnesotan pair’s performance eclipsed the previous 203-mile mark set just two weeks earlier in New York. A knee injury in 1916 apparently ended his high-level skating career, but he continued skating competitively into the late 1920s. Bryant worked for Duluth’s Union Towing and Wrecking Company for 32 years, retiring in 1955; he died in 1961.