Join your fellow Rotarians and guests on TONIGHT (Monday, December 9) at Northland Country Club, 3901 E Superior St, Duluth,  for a festive evening of music, heavy hors d'oeuvres and cash bar. DJ Nick Hyde will entertain us with his violin music and DJ skills, bring your dancing shoes and hit the floor! The party starts at 5pm, don't miss this annual evening of fun and fellowship to kick off the season.

 

 

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Lunch Buffet

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By Anthony Nordan

 

President-Elect Zach Walters brought our meeting to order. We opened with the pledge and four-way test. Today’s meeting had a few visiting Rotarians as well as guests.

 

Our Invocation was brought to us by Past Assistant Governor and Past President Al Makynen. His invocation focused on his family’s history with trains. He reminded us of his President’s Night in 2014, which was hosted at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum. In 1923, his father worked as a fireman’s assistant for a steam locomotive. In 1947, his dad was at the ceremony that brought the first diesel locomotive into service at US Steel mines. Many of his family worked for Oliver Mining Company (also known as “For The Oliver”). They used trains to move their product from the mines to Duluth.

 

Today's guests were former Club #25 member Andy Thielen, Angela Pecarina, Doug Stevens, Todd Mell, Mark Leuters, and Judy Sage. Mark Leutgeb, Skyline Rotary, gave shirts to new Rotarians.

 

(L to R) President-Elect Zach Walters, Assistant District Governor Mark Leutgeb, Matt Baumgartner, Morgana Kolenda, Jane Sadler

 

(L to R) Jane Sadler and Morgana Kolenda,

 

Jerry Pelofske reminded us to sign up for bell ringing. He also gave statistics on how much Rotarians have raised via the kettles. Over many years, we have raised $44,475.

 

Chair of the Day, Past President Dean Casperson, with speaker Tony Dierckins

 

Our presenter was Tony Dierckins. He has written over 2 dozen books. Many of these focus on trains. This is Tony’s first time speaking to us in several years. The focus of today’s presentation is his new book "Twin Ports Trains" This book was written with Jeff Lemke from Bloomington IL. Jeff visited the Twin Ports 68 times on trains himself between 1975-2024. He also worked for BNSF in many different positions over the years.

 

Tony’s presentation covered much information and spanned from 1870-2023. The book contains rare photos and ephemera. There are different historical maps before and after the arrival of the train network to Duluth. Many photos from Paul Gaylord of the train network being built in Duluth and the surrounding area. Different interesting historical facts were presented to us. One of them is that in the 1930s, there was only 1 woman on the crew, but by 1943, all the crew were women due to the war.

 

Chapters 1-8 of the book focus on the 24 railroads of Duluth and Superior. Chapter 9 focuses on the industry that was built up by the railroads, and that gave Duluth the early boost to its economy. The epilogue covers from 1970 to present. Most of the book looks at the timeframe from 1870-1970. How the railroads affected the community, the effect on the Indian population, and the damage to the environment from what the trains brought to Duluth.

 

In 1840, a trading post was set up for people to trade with the Indian tribes. In 1860, only 14 families remained in Duluth, and they were described as keeping vigil over the corpse of Duluth. In 1869, many towns, including Superior, began to form up and down the north shore. Jay Cooke comes in and begins investing in Duluth and bringing the railroad to us. This investment began in 1868 and finished in 1869 with the railroad terminating in Duluth. Duluth became a city on March 6, 1870, and we had 3,131 people, with 60% of those being immigrants. August 22, 1870, the 1^st train arrives.

 

The event of the 1^st train arriving was seen as monumental even then. St. Paul described it as an important event, which affirmed Duluth’s position. In that article, Duluth was described as “in the west,” meaning we were in the frontier. This, however, was not to last due to the Great Depression of 1873. Duluth rose to as many as 5,000 people before dropping to 2,000 people in 1878. We were downgraded to a village at that time. A trend began to form that would last for many cycles, if the trains boomed so did Duluth.

 

1920 was the peak of industrial trains. We had 12 railroads coming into Duluth. Duluth peaked in the 1930s with the war. As we sit in the 2020s, we have very few rails left, four commercial and maybe Northen Lights Express. The railroads plateaued, and so did the population. The presenter had a long list of questions on his final slide. All these questions can be answered in his book. The writer of this Gimlet article cannot do justice to the amount of information that Tony presented; his book looks very promising if the presentation is anything to go by.

 

Dick Pelinka with speaker Tony Dierckins

A few questions asked by Rotarians;