Around Swedish America in 548 Days - Day 36

Day 36 - Duluth

Duluth and the mining area of the Mesabi Range to the northwest were settled by large numbers of Scandinavians, particularly Finns and Swedes who began arriving in the 1850s and 1860s. Among them was Swedish immigrant Carl Eric Wickman (1887-1954), the founder of Greyhound Corporation. The nearby city of Superior, Wisconsin, also attracted Swedes who, with the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the mid-1880s, came to northern Minnesota to work as lumbermen.

The greatest concentration of Swedes in Duluth was in the West End along W. Third Street, marked by older houses and tall trees. Swedish congregations include Bethany Lutheran Church at 2308 W. Third Street (218-722-5108). It was organized in 1889, and the present sanctuary was constructed in 1903. First Covenant Church, 2101 W. Second Street (218-722-5451), at W. Twenty-first Avenue and Second Street, and Temple Baptist, 2202 W. Third Street, now Lincoln Park Community Church (218-722-4141), were also early churches. Temple Baptist, organized in 1884, is a red-brick classical building with a domed auditorium. The cornerstone reads, "First Swedish Baptist Church AD 1910"

South of Duluth on Midway Road is the little white-frame Augustana Lutheran Church and Cemetery (218-628-1306). The cornerstone notes that the "Sv. Ev. Luth. Midway Church" was organized in 1874 and built in 1917. There were also a number of Swedish settlers in the town of Cloquet, southwest of Duluth, but none of the old church buildings survive. The First Swedish Lutheran Church of Duluth (now Gloria Dei Lutheran Church), 219 N. Sixth Avenue East (218-722- 3381), was organized in 1870 by the Reverend P. A. Cederstam, who was serving as a traveling missionary for the Augustana Lutheran Minnesota Conference.

In downtown Duluth, in a park overlooking Lake Superior on London Road, stands a statue of Leif Eriksson. The statue was erected in 1956 by the Norwegian American League of Duluth and by popular subscription.