This month’s episode of Archive Dive focuses on the Grand Foot Path, a trail that traverses from St. Croix Falls to Madeline Island. Known by many names over the years, it was used for travel by foot, horseback and via stagecoach as the area developed. Echos of the foot path remain as various trails in Douglas County.

Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood is joined by Brian Finstad, historian with the Gordon-Wascott Historical Society, as they discuss the trail's Native American origins, and how it grew it become an important travel circuit Finstad, a native of Gordon, grew up with the foot path "in his backyard" as segments went right through property his family owned.

"It is always interesting to me that there were communities that were very historically connected together because of how people traveled that today, we don't think of as very connected," said Finstad. "The Grand Foot Path (St. Croix Trail, Bayfield Trail, Stagecoach Line) fell out of use when the railroads came to the area. As soon as the railroads came in, it very quickly disappeared. Even in the 1880s, you'll find that they were already writing about it as it was something from long ago history."

Also in this episode, Maria and Brian look at how the foot path influenced business, careers and traveling; its multiple names; why it had the attention of a U.S. Senator from Minnesota; why it was national news in newspapers in the 1850s and 1600s; why it's hard to find mentions of it in Wisconsin and Minnesota stagecoach history; where you can see segments of the trail; the significance of Gordon's Moccasin Road; plans for an auto tour of the trail, and much more.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

We take a peek inside of one of Superior’s grandest buildings, the Grand Opera House.

Buildings designed by Carl Wirth anchored downtown Superior in the late 1800s. His most elaborate design was the Grand Opera House on Belknap Street. The lavish theater opened in 1890 and entertained Superior residents for years before it was destroyed by fire.

In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood is joined by local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek to discuss the history of the opera house and its next door neighbor, the New Jersey Block. Also designed by Wirth, the New Jersey Block is now known as the Globe News Building.

“If there is a building that I could rebuild in Superior, it would be the Grand Opera House,” said Meronek.

What was it that set it apart?

“It was so exotic,” said Meronek. “Because it was a Moorish design. It had all kinds of fancy exterior decorations and stained glass.”

It cost $75,000 to build the 1,200-seat Grand Opera House, which hosted its first performance August 11, 1890 for an opera called "Martha." During its existence, the theater was the site of plays, vaudeville acts, wrestling and boxing matches, high school graduations and more. It also hosted a memorial service after President William McKinley was assassinated in 1897 while President Theodore Roosevelt spoke there running on the Bull Moose ticket.

The building was supposed to be fireproof, but dealt with fires in 1909 and 1911. A fire in 1939 was ultimately its demise.

During this episode, topics include how the Grand Opera Houses' interior looked; the dismay over a loss of a valuable piece of equipment; the role then-Superior Telegram owner John T. Murphy had with the Grand Opera House; the early days of the New Jersey Block; the mystery of when Globe News officially became Globe News and more.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at  mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

Fire destroyed two storied Superior warehouses one bitterly cold day, Jan. 6, 2022 . No one was injured, but Superior Mayor Jim Paine called it “a terrible tragedy for the city.”

In this month's podcast, Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood is once again joined by local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek as they discuss the history of the Osborne Warehouse and the Twohy Mercantile Building, also know as the Bayside Warehouse, which were built in the 1890s. Built with large pieces of timber, which was slower to burn, both were prominently mentioned in newspaper articles as being fire safe.

"They must have thought they were safe and they were, if you really think about it, as they were over 100 years old when they burned down, 120 years old," said Meronek. "I would have loved to have seen them in their hey day of what they looked like.”

The buildings had so much life and so many different businesses come through their doors. The Osborne Warehouse was the first one to be built, with construction beginning in the fall of 1892. It was not financed by Osborne, but by the Land and River Improvement Company and was used as a grocery wholesale center. But with internal issues, it was never utilized by Osborne. It would be utilized by the Bemis Company, which made bags. Other companies would use it as a warehouse, but really didn’t have a stable occupant until Sivertson Fisheries in the 1970s.

Near the Osborne Warehouse was another grocery warehouse, The Twohy Mercantile Building. Built in 1894, it was financed by Edmund Twohy, who was also the first fire chief of Superior. Within the warehouse, there was a cigar manufacturing center. Twohy went into business with Peter Eimon, and eventually left the business. Years later after Eimon opened a warehouse on Winter Street, Twohy would return to the original building and the grocery wholesale business.

In this episode, they'll discuss the other businesses that occupied the buildings, the financial panic in the United States in the 1890s, the connection President Franklin D. Roosevelt's family had to Superior, could Superior have been "the Chicago of the North" and more.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at  mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

Did you know that Superior hosted royals during the World War II era? The Crown Prince and Princess of Norway visited Superior, not once, but twice during that time. Newspapers of the day were filled with information about the royal visitors and their activities and the Crown Prince even took in a Superior Blues baseball game at their newly built stadium.

In this month's podcast, Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood is joined by local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek as they look back at the visits from Prince Olav and Princess Martha. The first visit was in 1939 during a goodwill tour of the United States for the royals. That included a few days in Superior, coincidentally at the same time the city observed its 50th birthday of being an incorporated city.

“One of the factors was because of the large Scandinavian population in the Twin Ports,” says Meronek.

Maria and Teddie also discuss another reason for the royals' visit, which included time in Duluth for a dedication of a well-known monument.

While the 1939 trip involved celebrations, the tone was different in 1942 as World War II was underway. Germany had attacked Norway, with the royal family able to escape. Prince Olav and Princess Martha again found themselves in Superior as part of an organized trip to get support from allies as the U.S. was now part of the war.

“Prince Olaf and Princess Martha wanted to make it perfectly clear that they didn’t want a lot of celebration. It had to be a simple visit because of what was going on in the world," says Meronek. “The prince spoke about what had happened and that we all needed to stick together.”

The people of Superior asked the royals to visit again and they said they would. Ultimately, they didn't return to Superior. However, their son, King Harold V, along with his wife, Queen Sonja, visited Duluth in 2011.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

 

We follow the trail of a portrait of a local veteran who lost his life in World War I. The portrait of Henry Blomberg was taken down during a renovation of Old Main on the University of Wisconsin-Superior campus. But the name for the portrait was lost. Years later, the portrait’s identity was discovered.

In this month’s episode, retired librarian and local historian Teddie Meronek joins Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood to guide us through the mystery.

Blomberg was born in Superior on Aug. 3, 1892 and after moving with his family to Aitkin, Minnesota, returned to Superior in 1914 to attend college as 22-year-old non-traditional student. During his time on campus, Blomberg was an active in sports, the student newspaper and was president of the debate team.

He also joined the Wisconsin National Guard, and after his 1916 graduation went with a group that was patrolling the United States/Mexico border. After graduating with a two-year degree in education, he spent a year teaching in Virginia, Minnesota. The U.S. would soon join World War I and having registered for the draft, Blomberg went to Texas to train and would eventually go into battle in France in 1918 with the U.S. Army’s 32nd Division. Blomberg performed many acts of heroism, including in the battles of Juvigny and Argonne. It was at Argonne on Oct. 5, 1918 where Henry lost his life, just five weeks before the end of the war.

After his death, Lt. Blomberg was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross which, after the Medal of Honor, is the nation's highest military honor. (Superior native Dick Bong also earned the Distinguished Service Cross in 1943).

Blomberg’s friends with the Superior Normal School debate team commissioned a painting of him, at a cost of about $300, and presented it to the college, where it hung in the auditorium for many years. But during a renovation, the portrait was taken down and put into storage and in the process, the name plate was lost. Without the name plate, it would be difficult to identify the person in the painting.

Almost 100 years after Blomberg’s death, Meronek wrote an article about him, and in this episode, she shares how her writing helped lead to the rediscovery of the portrait, which now hangs with a name plate on UW-Superior’s campus.

“That just makes me happier than anything I think I’ve ever done in all my time at the library,” says Meronek. “Every time I’m in Old Main, I stop and say hello to Henry.”

Throughout this episode, Meronek goes into detail about Blomberg’s life, time in school, his military career, his untimely death and more.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

We unspool the story of a 1892 stained glass window that was meant to showcase Douglas County at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Designed by Tiffany Studios, it included whaleback ships, grain elevators and a bird’s eye view of Superior. When Douglas County commissioners traveled to see it displayed in the Wisconsin Building, they hated it. They called it a “perfect botch,” demanded Tiffany remove the window and commissioned a new one. No photographs of the window exist, just a sketch. Where it is now remains a mystery.

We’ll also learn about the only passenger whaleback ever built, the S.S. Christopher Columbus, which was built in Superior and ferried passengers to and from the Chicago World’s Fair.

It was over 100 years after the Chicago World's Fair in the 1990s when local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek first became aware of the stained glass window and she's been researching it ever since. In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, Meronek joins the Superior Telegram’s Maria Lockwood to discuss both the window and the whaleback.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at  mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

For 120 years, the Carnegie Library has stood on the corner of Hammond Avenue. The Superior City Council voted in July to purchase the time-worn building to repair it to a viable state. It was the first of 63 libraries to be built in Wisconsin with funding from industrialist Andrew Carnegie. The structure opened in 1902 and served the public until 1992 when the current library was opened. Since then, the vacant building has been the focus of big dreams, but none of them have panned out.

In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek joins the Superior Telegram’s Maria Lockwood to take us on a trip through the building’s history, and discuss its importance to the people of Superior.

“It has meant so much to so many people over the years,” says Meronek. “Superior had its first library association in 1869 and we are a city that always prized libraries and what they could provide everybody in town.”

The Library was built in 1901 and opened in 1902 at a time when Superior’s population was approximately 30,000 people. Just three employees were on staff when the three-story sandstone library on Hammond Avenue opened its doors. The main floor featured chandeliers and nice furniture and the majority of the attractions, such as the children’s room. The public meeting rooms were located in the basement and the board room and art room were located upstairs. A mezzanine was added in the 1930s to help with space issues.

“They ran out of room almost immediately.”

Before the Hammond Avenue location added the mezzanine, Superior added another Carnegie library, as they received $20,000 in 1917 to build the one-story brick East End Branch on East Fifth Street.

Meronek grew up visiting both locations and would eventually go on to work at both sites, calling her career a “dream job.” Both locations closed their doors at the end of 1991, making way for the current Superior Public Library building on Tower Avenue. The East End branch was turned into a private residence, but the library on Hammond sits empty. Meronek has also been involved in historical preservation and hopes the building is part of Superior’s future.

“I said this at the city council meeting, not every old building can be saved, nor should it be saved, but this one needs to be saved. We have the first Carnegie library in Wisconsin. There are other cities that would kill to have a Carnegie library, we have two of them, the first and the last, and I think that we owe that building, just for the fact that it survived 120 years and has been mishandled and abused for the last 30 years of it, we owe it to that library to do what we can to save it.”

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at  mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

Edith Carlson was a librarian who had a two-year campaign to build a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Superior. Had it succeeded, the design that Wright dubbed “Below Zero” would have been nestled in Superior’s Central Park neighborhood, near Lenroot’s Funeral Home and across from Gouge Park. The connection between the world famous architect and Carlson has captured the imagination of writers on two continents.

Local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek has written about Carlson. In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, Meronek discusses her journey in researching Carlson and how an email from writer Philippa Lewis of England led to learning more. Carlson has quite a story, and in her, Meronek found a kindred spirit, even though she had passed away before their paths could cross.

“When I finally tracked down what she did at the library, going through annual reports and things, I found that she was first hired as a general assistant, but then she became the station’s librarian, which made me feel good because that is what I was hired to do when I first went to work for the Superior Public Library,” said Meronek. In those annual reports, Meronek could see that Carlson was a determined advocate for literacy. “She was always petitioning for more books, more shelves, more space for the people she served.”

That determination led to Carlson reaching out to the world-renowned Wright, an architect who designed over 1,000 structures in his lifetime, when Carlson decided it was time to build a house. She lived with her parents and was savvy about finances, saving enough money to purchase land near Gouge Park on 4th Street, strategically along a bus line as Carlson didn’t have a car.

While Wright was famous and in high demand, Carlson wasn’t afraid to ask questions or even challenge him. During correspondence, an assistant wrote, “This is Mr. Wright’s 204th house.” Carlson scribbled in a note, “Well, it may be his 204th house, but it is my first.” She took the project very seriously, knowing it would likely be the only house she’d ever build in her lifetime.

“She had no problem standing toe-to-toe with him, saying this is what I need, this is my house and this is what I need, and most people would say, ‘It’s Frank Lloyd Wright,’” said Meronek.

The correspondence between Carlson and Wright went on for two years and the project faced various delays. In the end, ground would not be broken for a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Superior. The Great Depression had an effect, as around 1940, librarians in Superior took pay cuts and time off without pay. Suddenly now with slim paychecks, Edith couldn’t afford the price. She would eventually build a house near her parents’ home and the “Below Zero” house would eventually be built, just not for Carlson and not in Superior. Instead, the design was used elsewhere.

“She bemoaned the fact that it just wasn’t her loss, she also thought of it as Superior’s loss,” said Meronek.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at  mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.

A pre-1900 going-out-of-business sale prompted two brothers, Theodore Julius (T.J.) Roth and Alois August (A.A.) Roth to open up their department store in Superior instead of Chippewa Falls.

After opening in 1889, Roth Brothers department store offered a wide variety of items, from paint to records, while the owners wove themselves into the fabric of the community.

According to retired librarian and local historian Teddie Meronek, growing up in the area, everybody knew Roth's.

“They (T.J. and A.A.) had experience in running general stores, so they knew what people wanted.”

In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, Meronek shares the origins of the Roth brothers and their experience with general stores; how the closing of the Beehive Bazaar in Superior caused a change of plans; and how a coin toss played a part in the story.

The Roth brothers were innovative, offering questionnaires to customers; running unique ad campaigns; delivering purchases by sleigh; adding groceries to their inventory; and selling rose bushes, flower seeds and much more.

You could find everything at Roth's and while you were there, you could even ride an elevator, or two elevators at one of their locations. Roth’s also had the first public restroom in the area, though it’s not the kind you might think.

“I just remember going there and you could buy anything you wanted. If you needed a birthday card, it was there — or perfume or makeup and you could go upstairs and get something new to wear and you could also go get your hair done,” said Meronek. “It was such an icon, I think, and something that has totally disappeared from our small towns. Small town department stores that are independently owned.”

After the owners passed away, the store stayed in the family and remained open for many years. Its closing was announced in 1977 and the store made its final sales in 1978.

The legacy of Roth Brothers department store lives on, even inspiring the 2012 play “You’ll Find It at Roth’s” that was performed at the Douglas County Historical Society. Is a sequel a possibility?

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at mlockwood@superiortelegram.com .

Garden clubs bloomed in Superior for many decades, not only beautifying the city, but affecting change. Even today, their plantings and their footprints can be found in Superior. The clubs usually consisted of a group of ladies who would get together and work on gardens in their area. It was a social outlet, where they bonded over gardening and would take care of community gardens in public places.

“It always seemed like they were doing something for someone else, for the betterment of the community,” said local historian and retired librarian Teddie Merenok.

Meronek has studied their impact on the community, which ran actively from the 1920’s through the 1990s. In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, Meronek shares the origins of the first garden club in Superior. The Superior Garden Club, later known as the Central Garden Club, was organized in 1926 by sisters Mabel Stratton and Faith Kennedy. Their passion for gardening came from their father, Robert Kelly, the manager of The Land and River Improvement Company.

It turns out, Mabel and Faith weren’t the only ones passionate about gardening. They were going to cap their enrollment at 30, but everyone in town wanted to belong to it. By 1939, Superior had the largest garden club in the state, with almost 300 people. Eventually the club would be broken down into auxiliaries, sometimes along neighborhood lines. Other garden clubs formed and would spread throughout Douglas County.

“They just loved these flowers, loved gardening and just wanted everyone to enjoy it as much as they did,” said Meronek.

Club members learned landscaping, held flower shows and events, sponsored school clubs, and were ahead of their time in promoting planting gardens that would attract bees, birds and wildlife. The clubs also kept their notebooks, addresses, newspaper clippings and pictures in scrapbooks as colorful as the gardens that they tended.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at mlockwood@superiortelegram.com.