Duluth

a city of Minnesota. It is situated at the western extremity of Lake Superior at the mouth of the St. Louis River. The name is derived from that of Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut (1645-1709), a French pioneer-trader who is supposed to have camped here at an early date. Duluth is called the Zenith City. In size it is the third city of Minnesota. It occupies sixty-nine square miles and has a water frontage of twenty-four. The site is long and narrow and rises rapidly from the water to bluffs from 400 to 800 feet high. A fine driveway along the bluffs commands a superb view of the city, the harbor, and the shipping. A narrow tongue of land several miles in length, cast up between the outflowing current of the river and the inbursting waves of Superior, is known as Minnesota Point. It affords natural harborage of great extent. A government canal guarded by lighthouses has been cut through the Point near the shore. An overhead ferry like that of Rouen, France, crosses the canal. The harbor is lined for miles with huge grain elevators, lumber piles and coal docks. West Superior, on the Wisconsin side of the St. Louis, seems a part of the same city. Palatial lake steamers, whalebacks laden with grain, boats piled high with lumber, and darting tugs, with the attendant whistling and turning of bridges, give the harbor a maritime air which a stranger is hardly prepared to expect in the interior of North America.

Of public buildings the most noticeable is the Central High School. It is an imposing four-story edifice of red stone. It occupies a commanding position. A Carnegie library, a state normal school, large hotels, and huge wholesale blocks may be mentioned.

The manufactures of the city are chiefly lumber and wooden products, and foundry and machine work. A project to lead the waters of the upper St. Louis to a point within the corporate limits promises water power of importance.

Duluth is already a port of enormous shipments. Thirty million tons of iron ore are shipped from the vicinity annually. The elevators handle 25,000,000 bushels of wheat and upward each year. In 1902 280,000,000 feet of lumber went eastward over the lake. The coal docks have a capacity of 1,000,000 tons. Duluth is the natural place to handle westward bound salt, sugar, coal, and all other bulky, heavy commodities. It is the terminus of the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes waterway. Denver and San Francisco are nearer Duluth than they are to any other lake port. Duluth is the natural lake port for an enormous region now known as the Northwest. Eight railways, including two transcontinental lines, radiate from Duluth. Hardware and groceries are the specialties of the wholesale trade.

The Indian title to the town site of Duluth was extinguished in 1854. The city was incorporated in 1857. In 1870 the first railway, the St. Paul and Duluth, was built. The Northern Pacific followed soon after. The rapid growth of the population is indicated by the United States Census returns,--in 1880, 3,470; in 1890, 33,187; and in 1900, 52,969. There are present indications that the 100,000 border line has been approached.

See Ferry; Minnesota; Superior