Canal Park Project (1920–1924)
By 1920 most of Duluth’s major neighborhoods had taken shape. Neighborhoods were broken down by financial, religious, and ethnic lines. Duluth was home to about 100,000 people from backgrounds as diverse as any city in the U.S. By the 1920’s the great immigrant waves from Had subsided. These Immigrants came from countries like Canada, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Turkey, Belgium, France, Sweden and even a few Asian immigrants. Duluth’s African American population increased in 1916 due to the recruitment of southerners for U.S. Steel production. In 1920 certain events (we’ll discuss later) drove many established families away from the city. Overall in 1920 Duluth had a population of 98,917 (Census Estimate).
This photograph may have been shot from Seventh Street and about Lake Avenue.
The Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge is a span-drive configuration movable lift bridge constructed in 1901–1905 and modified in 1929. It is located on Lake Avenue and spans the Duluth Ship Canal, which connects the city of Duluth with Minnesota Point. The bridge was designed by Thomas F. McGilvray and C.A.P. Turner, and constructed by the Modern Steel Structural Company.
Since its modification in 1929 the Aerial Lift Bridge has been rehabilitated four times: in 1986, 1999, 2007, and 2009 with each project addressing different needs.
Duluth and the surrounding area feature a great deal of natural beauty, some of which can be experienced without leaving the comfort of your vehicle. Anyone making a road trip to Duluth can witness the breathtaking views from Skyline Parkway and North Shore Scenic Drive.
By 1940 they were all gone, but for a generation it was streetcars that dominated the streetscapes of both Duluth and Superior, Wis.
Given Duluth’s geographic dimensions as a long, hilly and not very wide city, there were unique ways constructed to accommodate, including using a bridge (that no longer exists) to connect Duluth streetcars with Superior. The area was also known for building the Incline Railway, which carried passengers up the famous Duluth hillside, and the only known firefighting trolley in the US, which responded to emergencies along Park Point.
Duluth was a natural for streetcar service, but making it successful was a challenge. The city, some twenty-five miles long yet only three miles wide in most places, has the tallest and steepest hills in Minnesota and a harbor separating it from its sister city, Superior, Wisconsin.
You can find more information on the Streetcar era in Duluth you can read the book Twin Ports by trolley by Aaron Isaacs.
Twin Ports by Trolley charts the history of the streetcar system that met the unique difficulties posed by Duluth, from the Interstate Bridge that crossed the harbor to the Incline Railway that carried travelers more than five hundred feet above Lake Superior.
“Duluth is blessed with the rich history of a town built on the northern frontier by the strength of American manufacturing, heavy industry, and shipping. Twin Ports by Trolley shapes a wonderful narrative of the challenges and potential of that era through the lens of the trolley system that climbed the hills on the shores of the world’s greatest lake. I love reading about Duluth’s history, and this book is a real treat.” — Don Ness, served as 38th Mayor of Duluth from 2008–2016 (Democrat)
One of the darkest moments in Minnesota history and Duluth history are the lynchings that happened in 1920. By the 1920s lynching of African Americans had become a standard practice across the nation. The lynchings in Duluth however represented how far north the practice has gotten.
It was the John Robinson Circus that brought Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie to Duluth. They and other young black men were employed by the circus as cooks and laborers who performed a variety of physical tasks. Traveling by train, the circus was greeted by an eager crowd upon arrival in Duluth.
On June 14, Irene Tusken (19), and James Sullivan (18), went to the circus in Duluth. At the end of the evening the pair walked to the rear of the main tent. Nobody is sure of what happened next, but in the early morning of June 15th, Duluth Police Chief John Murphy received a call from James Sullivan’s father saying six black circus workers had held the pair at gunpoint and then raped Irene Tusken. Little evidence would be found to corroborate these claims.
Six African Americans were immediately arrested by the Duluth Police and held in the Duluth city jail, located inside the police station on the corner of Second Avenue and Superior Street. Already reported in the local newspaper, news of the alleged rape spread rapidly. That evening a white mob estimated between 1,000 and 10,000 people gathered on Superior Street outside the police station. They met little resistance from the police, who had been ordered not to use their guns.
The lynchings made headlines in newspapers throughout the country. Many were shocked such an atrocity happened in Minnesota, a northern state. The Chicago Evening Post said, “This is a crime of a Northern state, as black and ugly as any that has brought the South in disrepute. The Duluth authorities stand condemned in the eyes of the nation.” An article in the Minneapolis Journal accused the lynch mob of putting “an effaceable stain on the name of Minnesota,” stating, “The sudden flaming up of racial passion, which is the reproach of the South, may also occur, as we now learn in the bitterness of humiliation in Minnesota.”
There is now a memorial that currently reside in Duluth at the site of the lynching’s that happened on June 15, 1920, in honor of the three victims. Nobody was ever charged with the murders of these three men.
