Bayfront Festival Park

Bayfront Festival Park. . , In the early 1970s, sisters Caroline and Julia Marshall (of the Marshall family that founded the Marshall-Wells wholesale hardware company) purchased and gave a unique tract of waterfront land to the City "for public use and enjoyment." It was unique, said the sisters, because "it is the only land in the city that is central, flat, and unpaved." Satisfying their vision for a special park has become a gradual deliberate process: concluding industrial use, mobilizing a new non-profit planning organization, construction of the Great Lakes Aquarium, further amenities you see today, and expected future refinements. , A second major benefactor richly nourished the site in 1999, Lois Paulucci, wife of entrepreneur Jeno Paulucci, made a generous contribution to the people of Duluth. Its purpose: to add permanent facilities that would improve Bayfront as a four-season public park for music, recreation and family activities for all. , Experiences in the park, like our weather, change daily. You can choose a feeling of isolation or of urban energy depending on where you stand and the direction you face. A summer weekend here may offer music to 15,000 people in Bayfront's open air amphitheater. The gateway arch welcomes visitors and frames the music pavilion, the park's icon, which recalls forms, colors and materials of waterfront industry and the historic aerial lift bridge. The warming house re-energizes skaters in winter. Bazaars, barbecues and picnics add color and flavor in season. , The abandoned and dilapidated 120-foot-wide Slip #1 is now earth-filled and planted. The slip's westerly reconstructed wood crib edge is a walkway connecting the park to a deck cantilevered over the water, providing 360° views of the lake, harbor and city. , Bayfront Park's cohesiveness is a credit to the foresight of the Marshall sisters, to the city's mid-80s overall waterfront planning process, Lois Paulucci and the designers that brought life to her ideas, all in collaboration with community interest groups that continue to ensure public participation as maintenance and improvements of this popular park continue.