60 Years of Duluth History by the Numbers

Photo courtesy: Tony Webster of California. Creative Commons.

We moved to Duluth in 1986. It was a low point here. To give you an idea of how scarce the jobs were, the front page of the local paper said that 13,000 people applied for 100 jobs at the new paper mill being built in West Duluth.

The recession that struck at the beginning of the decade had still not yet lifted here in the Northland. I was looking for a writing job and persuaded myself that I had an excellent chance of finding one because (a) anyone with talent had either found work or gone to Minneapolis to find work. Therefore (b) I was competing against people with less talent. 

I showed my portfolio of published writings to two and three people a day for two months, to any and all businesses and agencies that might have writers or need writers. As a result, I got to know the situation here pretty well. People confided that there was big money coming in and the empty warehouses and abandoned buildings in Canal Park were going to disappear. A whole new Canal Park was coming.

My mental image of Duluth was defined by the population stats. At one time there were 126,000 people living here. In the 1990 census, Duluth had a population of just over 85,000. That number was down more than 7000 from 1980. Somewhere in there someone put up a billboard that read, "Last one out please turn off the lights."

Since 2000 the city population has been fairly stable at 86,000 and change. Of these 12 to 13,000 are over 65 (including me now.) The median age is 33.8 with slightly more females than males (according to the city statistics I have access to.)

The biggest surprise for me, however, had to do with how recently the population had been much higher. In 1960 it was 106,884, falling to 100,578 in 1970. And if you dig a little deeper the reason becomes quite apparent, because there were 34,491 households in 1960 and 34,646 household in 1990. That means the primary drop wasn't so such much people leaving as having smaller families or "household units."

Today we have over 36,000 households, but the population is close to unchanged.

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New Duluth flag, 2019.

When Duluth was at its height it was a blue collar town. West Duluth had high paying jobs in places like Clyde Iron and Diamond Tool. U.S. Steel had a plant in Morgan Park and as long as the ore flowed from the Iron Range things were good.

But nothing stays the same forever. Things change. Today, not only are those higher paying jobs significantly diminished, the Tourism Industry that replaced those jobs has been the victim of a Covid-driven bloodbath. The hotel and restaurant trades have been nearly disabled, and from what I recall having heard was that the city could face a 25 million dollar shortfall this year.

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The vision of the future outlined in Imagine Duluth 2035, adopted by the City Council in 2018, was launched with a new city flag and the dream of being a role model for cities across the country. In theory it's all very nice. This year's economic setback notwithstanding, the future awaits.

At the end of the day, the vision is noble, and hopeful. The only thing I see missing are signs as you enter the city from North, South, East and West saying, "Welcome to Duluth, Birthplace of Bob Dylan."

Meantime, life goes on. Stay safe, and wash your hands.