January 1871: "Duluth is so precisely at the center of the world that in every direction around it the horizon appears equally distant." 3 Duluth, however, defied its detractors. It absorbed six neighboring villages, started its climb up hillsides, and expanded along the lake shore. On 1 August 1870 the first train arrived there amid cheering, direct from St. Paul, covering the 154 miles in 16 hours and 20 minutes. Further progress seemed assured, which made the rebound in 1873 all the more surprising and which kept Duluth from becoming a city for a long time. By 1880 the population had shown but a minimum of growth: 10% in 10 years. But in 1884 Charlemagne Tower financed a new railroad line to Duluth, and what with prospecting for gold and copper at the same time, and becoming a shipping center for iron ore, a fantastic growth was heralded.

The first transportation by water along Lake Superior had probably taken place some two centuries ago, when 60 canoes loaded with furs made their way to the markets in the east. Those canoes must have been large ones, manned by four or six oars, but their total capacity can hardly have been as much as two tons. In 1871, however, 92,820 tons of goods were being loaded in the twin harbors of Duluth-Superior. But before the opening of Sault Ste. Marie Canal, all transport on Lake Superior was on a fleet of 12 ships. In 1883, the twin harbors shipping had climbed over the one million ton figure, and in 1886 there arrived 665 steam-propelled vessels and 232 barges : 86 came from foreign ports, and 119 ships were of foreign registry. In 1898 the tonnage had reached ten million tons, climbed to fifty million in 1916, and reached over seventy-five million in 1953. Based on tonnage, then, Duluth-Superior is second only to the port of New York in importance. Any world port accounting for more than sixty million tons freight per year can be called a major one, but Duluth does all that in eight months of every year, spending four winter months in icebound inactivity. As soon as spring returns, long trainloads of ore come down from the hills, straight to the harbor, to be loaded on 600-foot long ships carrying some 20,000 tons each, direct to the steel mills. During World War Il, for example, more than 80% of the ore used by the United States was shipped via Duluth. It is, then, to the constant demand for iron and steel that Duluth owes its own incredible growth. And how it has grown! Across the river there would have been an ideal site for a city, a nine-mile stretch of level, sandy shore

3. Saturday Evening Post. 16 April 1949.

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