Duluth 101: Duluth's Aerial Transfer Bridge

Name: Duluth 101: Duluth's Aerial Transfer Bridge
Start: 2025-09-11T18:00:00-05:00
Location: 1917 W Superior St, Duluth, MN, United States, Minnesota 55806

Schedule

Thu, 11 Sep, 2025 at 06:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

1917 W Superior St, Duluth, MN, United States, Minnesota 55806 | Duluth, MN

The Duluth Folk School's fall season of Duluth 101 kicks off with a presentation about the history of our city's iconic piece of architecture: the Aerial Lift Bridge! Duluth finished digging its ship canal in 1871, but it wasn’t until 1905 that a permanent bridge spanned its piers—and not just any bridge, but one of the most unique and innovate structures in the world. An aerial transfer bridge, it ferried passengers back and forth across the canal in a gondola car. But by 1925 it had become obsolete, and five years later the city converted it into the most unique aerial lift bridge on the planet. Duluth author Tony Dierckins discusses the creation of the ship canal, life before the bridge, early ideas for bridging the canal, the city’s struggle to build the bridge, its life serving Duluth, and how the ferry bridge became the city’s aerial lift bridge. Adapted from Dierckins’s "Duluth’s Aerial Bridge & the Canal It Crosses".
Free event!
About our presenter: Author Tony Dierckins—publisher of Duluth’s Zenith City Press—has written nearly 30 books,including a dozen histories celebrating historic Duluth and Western Lake Superior such as "Lost Duluth", "Duluth’s Grand Old Architecture", "Twin Ports Trains", and the award-winning "Duluth: An Urban Biography". Tony will be available to sell and sign books after the presentation.