Duluth, Minnesota recent comments:

Back in the late 90s we turned the park into a pretty cool skate park, even raised money to have it repaved. I remember watching the tractors destroy all the hard work we out into that skate spot and thinking how cool the new skate spot would be. City never came back to pave it sadly. Then we made a sweet dirt BMX track for a few years. Memories.

It's the city's fault. They've ruined it for kids in many parks. No programs. No skating. All at a time when kids need physical play more than ever. Our $goes to bayfront for tourists and kids who have a ride. Observation is now a shit hole uninhabitable for pleasure. It is an infectious joke of dog park.

At least upto the early 1970s, the apartments had an outdoor pool.

Does anyone know if the control tower is still used as the main control tower anymore?

It would make sense to blend it in with the other buildings, but the clearance is very low inside, so I could see it being either way. It's also very creepy inside, dark with the dirty windows, and that low clearance.

Went by there today and they are still open for business.

This is a classic barber shop. I got my first haircut here as I lived just down the street. I don't know if the Barbershop has remained open since the passing of Dan.

Emerson elementary school is a few blocks away and I went to school there thru 4th grade. Jollystone park was amazing, huge picnic area, swings, circular tube you could run in, a nice weaving entry ramp, paintings of yogi and boo boo, etc. The park was a blast when I was a kid and after Emerson school closed about 30 years ago the city let the part go to hell, now it doesn't look like a park was ever there. Is a shame, when your a kid that kind of stuff in your neighbor hood is memorable. To bad the neighborhood or community close to the park didn't have some fun raising effort to keep it alive for the kids.

Still no activity to this day.

Over the 2013 season I've seen a few ships load grain there, it's nice to see ships using the site again, I hope such business continues to grow.

This park is on the list of parks on the city website here: http://goo.gl/cREMO

This park is on the list of parks on the city website here: http://goo.gl/cREMO

I added the approximate locations of about 7 features to the USS Duluth Works area. I only know that the ore storage is precise, the rest is estimated on light information, & may not be 100% correct.

Fixed, now covers what should be 100% of the Duluth Heights Area.

Russ is the man, have him make you a drink!

I had heard that since the Sheraton Hotel opened next door, there had been talk of restoring this building to it's former hotel glory. I hope it is true.

I haven't seen any thing yet this year, but it last year I was blown away when I saw ship at the south side! After some investigation I found it was unloading cargo. I saw another ship sometime later again. I can't remember if this is the first or second time, but I uploaded a photo of the Canadian Transport unloading on the south side.

Signs on either end of the span have the word Drawbridge on them.

Site is man-made fill. Originally home to the Imperial Flour Mill, one of Duluth's first. The mill had two wooden grain storage elevators (Nos. 4 & 5) along the inner end of the slip. In the early 1900s the mill was taken over by the Capitol Elevator Co., which ceased flour milling operations and built a new ship-loading concrete headhouse (Capitol #6) at the outer end of the slip which still operates today. More banks of concrete silos were added in the '20s, and the concrete and wood sections operated together through the 1970s. Capitol #4 was destroyed in a massive fire in early 1978 which ended the career of the Harry L. Allen, a lake freighter docked alongside for the winter. Capitol #5 had been demolished the previous year, and a new annex of concrete silos was added to the remaining facility to take the place of the wooden structures. When grain business declined after the record-breaking export seasons of the late '70s, activity at Cap. 6 was fairly slow. By the late '80s it seemed to mostly handle a slow stream of domestic wheat shipments to the mills at Buffalo, NY. AGP Grain, Inc. purchased the facility in the early 1990s, and within a few years had established a strong flow of overseas export activity. From the mid '90s through 2007 AGP was usually the second or third busiest grain terminal in the port, and was unique in that it was visited almost exclusively by oceangoing ships. This elevator was purchased in 2008 by Riverland Agriculture (Calagary, Alberta), a subsidiary of a hedge fund called Whitebox Advisors (Minneapolis, MN) and hasn't loaded a ship since. Instead it's used to store grain that comes and goes by rail; Canadian oats are often handled here. The facility's new owners gave named it the "Duluth Lakeport" elevator. In 2010 Ceres Global Ag Corp., a Toronto, Ontario - based hedge fund and agricultural trading company, purchased the Riverland Ag subsidiary from Whitebox. Riverland's grain terminals were included in the deal, so now this facility operates under the Riverland name for Ceres. Ceres resumed limited vessel loading activity at its other Duluth facility just to the north, but so far the ship-loading berth at this elevator has remained inactive.