Historic Slip No. 1

Historic Slip No. 1. Bayfront Festival Park. , In the late 1800s, Duluth was fast becoming an important shipping port for interstate commerce, second only to New York in cargo tonnage. Slips No. 1 and 2 (Figure 1 and 2) were built in the 1880s by the railroads operating in the area. Slip No. 1 was used primarily for berthing cruise and general cargo vessels coming from as far away as Buffalo, New York and Toronto, Ontario. It was used as a passenger terminal well into the 1950s and was eventually abandoned by the Norther Pacific Railroad in the 1960s. , Slip No. 1, now filled, measured 950 feet in length and 120 feet in width. Slip construction was typical of the period with edges consisting of ten foot by ten foot timber cells known as cribs. The cells were sunk along the slip and filled with rock, gravel and sand. Decking consisted of wood planks affixed to the top of the cribbing with iron spikes and nails. , In the 1970s, sisters Caroline and Julia Marshall , heirs to the Marshall-Wells hardware fortune and active in Duluth civic projects , were instrumental in transferring a large portion of Bayfront land from private to public ownership. As a key element of Duluth’s revitalized working waterfront, the Bayfront Festival Park is a living legacy and tribute to the history of Duluth, its unique culture and relationship to Lake Superior, the greatest of all lakes. , [photo and illustration captions] , Figure 1.

Bird’s-eye view of the Duluth Harbor, ca. 1910.

Figure 2.

This is a map of the Duluth Harbor, circa 1900. Only 15 years earlier, the area in front of you was open water and wetlands. Private development filled the wetlands and built the slips.

Figure 3.

This is the construction detail of the Slip No. 1 cribbing, dated January 31, 1898. The slip had cribbing built only on its western edge. Although in disrepair, it was still intact when removed prior to the filling of the slip over 100 years later.