Sometimes, sarcasm comes true.
In 1871, when Duluth, Minnesota was a settlement of barely 3,000 people and Congress was considering enacting a land grant to the area, a Kentucky Congressman named J. Proctor Knott took to the floor of the House of Representatives and gave a speech, interrupted 62 times by laughter, about what he termed “the untold delights of Duluth.” Dripping with more sarcasm than a piece of pie a la mode (invented in Duluth) on an August afternoon, Knott suggested that Duluth was the nascent center of the universe, in part because its weather was “cold enough for at least nine months in the year to freeze the smoke-stack off a locomotive.”
Despite the satire (and the defeat by Congress of the land grant), Duluth grew to over 100,000 people by the 1920s. During the first decade of the 20th century, it was the busiest port in the United States, even surpassing New York City. Located on the western edge of Lake Superior (the largest freshwater lake in the world, holding more water than the four other Great Lakes combined, plus three extra Lake Eries), it can access the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway. Its primary cargo was iron ore mined in Minnesota, for shipment via the Great Lakes to mills in Illinois and Ohio. Duluth was such a boom town for a while that U.S. Steel built a plant there which, in turn, spawned other manufacturing and trade.
Duluth even had a National Football League franchise in the 1920s, the Duluth Eskimos.
Speaking of Eskimos, there’s that weather. Duluth averages over 100 days a year when the high temperature is below freezing and 40 days a year when the low is below zero. According to at least one government study, Duluth is the fifth-coldest city in the U.S. Lake Superior is so big, it can even generate its own Nor’easters – here’s a wave hitting a 130-foot cliff a few miles up the coast from town.
However, in early August, Duluth is fantastic. Ginny and I arrived on an 80-degree afternoon with the sun glinting off Lake Superior.
The steel mill is long gone, the Minnesota iron ore lode played out decades ago and the population has dwindled to about 85,000. Now Duluth’s biggest industry is tourism. We were lucky enough to book an RV park on the waterfront, 
which is accessible by crossing the Duluth Aerial Bridge, built in 1905 and one of the few vertical-lift bridges still operating. 
The bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places, but it still works. It was in its up position when we arrived (causing the first traffic jam we’ve been in in months).
The bridge is the gateway from the industrial waterfront onto Lake Superior. It also abuts a pedestrian walkway along the water called Canal Park, an old warehouse district that’s now full of restaurants, craft shops and a park.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were more millionaires per capita in Duluth than anywhere else in the country. Apparently, they all build really cool houses because the city abounds with great architecture.
Monday, we drove the North Shore Scenic Byway from Duluth. The roadway hugs the shore of Lake Superior all the way to the Canadian border about 150 miles due north. We only went one-third of that way, going as far as the Split Rock Lighthouse, constructed after there were 29 shipwrecks on Lake Superior in 1905. The lighthouse is only 54 feet tall, but it’s built on the edge of a 133-foot cliff (the one in that Nor’easter picture above). In their heyday (which ended in 1969) the lighthouse and foghorn could be seen and heard over 20 miles away.
On the drive to Split Rock, we also visited the little town of Two Harbors, where natural beauty and industrial brawn coexist,
and Gooseberry State Park, which has waterfalls…
and panoramic views of Lake Superior and its coastline.
Duluth has been the most pleasant surprise of our trip so far. Part of it was lucky weather timing (by Tuesday morning, it had turned foggy and chilly) but it’s also simply another example of how many hidden gems there are in our country! Nevertheless, we’ll leave it to others to explore Duluth during winter, although we disagree with the extent of the weather-related comments of the infamously sarcastic Congressman Knott, who was willing to “let the freezing cyclones of the black Northwest bury (Duluth) forever!”