With its great commercial advantages the city has been enabled during the past 25 and especially during the past 10 years, to increase its manufacturing capacity very greatly. The largest plant is that of the Minnesota Steel Company. (United Steel Cor poration) in the western part of the city. II represents a capital of $25,000,000 and employs 4,000 men, for whom it has built a model city within the limits of Duluth. The Zenith Fur nace Company produces coke tar and ammonia, as well as gas for lighting and heating the city. Duluth also has many establishments working in iron, a cement factory of importance, flour mills, sash factories, clothing establishments and steamboat works. In all it has 243 establish ments employing 12,000 people and producing annually a value of %20,000,000, exclusive of the value of the steel, of which $8,000,000 is added by manufacture. For this manufacturing there is available 120,000 horsepower of electric cur rent from the Saint Louis River, of which 60,000 is already being utilized. The city is lighted by this power, the current being dis tributed by the Duluth Edison Electric Company at a maximum rate of 6 cents per kilowatt hour Finance.— Duluth has 10 banks —4 national and 6 State — with a capital and surplus of $7,000,000 and deposits of $30,000,000. Its clearings in 1916 were $283,812,916. Postal re ceipts were $440,097. Its assessed valuation is $58,596,674. The rate of taxation is 37 mills.
Government.— The government of Duluth has been a model for other cities. Five com missioners, each responsible for a single depart ment of municipal activity, form a council under the presidency of the mayor, the commissioner of public safety. This department includes police, fire, health and harbor divisions. The commissioner for public affairs has charge of the library and welfare divisions; the commis sioner of finance controls accounting and licens ing; the commissioner of public works super vises the engineering, street improvement and construction of water and gas mains; the come missioner of public utilities is responsible for the water and gas systems. The commissioners acting as a council appoint the city clerk, as sessor, attorney and auditor; but they them selves have appointive power within their own departments for all necessary employees. Through ownership of the gas distributing sys tem the city has reduced the price from $1.90 to 75 cents a thousand cubic feet. The city is without saloons.
History.— Duluth has had an interesting his tory. Radisson and Grosilliers, French traders, passed the site of the city in 1659. In 1679 Daniel Greysolon Sieur Du Lhut visited the head of Lake Superior and became very friendly with the Dakota Indians, whose lands then extended into what was later the Chippewa Territory. He was able to buy 50 canoe loads of fur. Later he rescued Father Hennepin from a band of Dakotas, who had captured him while he, with companions, was on his way up the Mississippi after leaving La Salle's party, and rather badly treated him. It is fitting that the city bear the
name of one of the most intrepid and capable of the many Frenchmen who had to do with the Northwest. When the French lost control of America other traders made their way over the site of Duluth to the upper Mississippi, journey ing by the Saint Louis and portages to Sandy Lake. This route made a post at Fond du Lac very important. Early in the 19th century the American Fur Company, under the direction of William Astor, established a station there, one building of which is still to be seen. As late as 1860, however, what is called Duluth was a forest except for a few huts on Minnesota Point. The partial improvement of the harbor called attention to the possibilities of a city, but the country at large was much of the opinion of Senator Proctor Knott, who said in a speech that rather than vote for a grant of land for a railroad at Duluth he should prefer that "the freezing cyclones of the bleak Northwest bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the Saint Croix.° The Saint Paul and Duluth, now a part of the Northern Pacific system, arrived in 1870, and the Northern Pacific built through from Duluth to North Dakota in 1874. Later the establishment of better connection with the Min neapolis and Saint Paul and the discovery of iron in the Vermillion Range brought prosperity to the village. The first shipment from the Ver million Range was made in 1884 from Two Har bors; the first shipment from the Mesabi was made in 1892. Since that date, with the excep tion of a brief period of depression following the panic of 1893, the progress of the city has been continuous.
Population.— In 1860 the total population of Saint Louis County, including Duluth, was 405. In 1870 this had increased to 3,131. In lt•tt the population of the city was 3,483; in 1890, 33,115; m 1900, 52,969; in 1910, 78,466. In 1917 the estimated population was 97,000. The foreign born population is 39 per cent of the whole, the leading nationalities being Scandinavian, 14 per cent k Canadian, 6 per cent ; German, 3 per cent; Russian and Austrian 3 per cent, and a scat tering of Finns, Italians, Irish, English and Scotch.
Bibliography.— Parsons, E. Dudley, 'The Story of Minnesota' (1916) ; Pollack, Hester, 'Our Minnesota' (New York 1917) ; Folwell, W. W., (1908) ; 'Minnesota in Three Centuries' (1908) ; Pamphlets by the Duluth Commercial Club and by the Commis sioner of Immigration; 'Statistical Report of Marine Commerce of Duluth, Minn., and Su perior, Wis., for the Calendar Year 1916'; of Chief Engineer U. S. A. to Secretary of War, 1914' ; Lehnerts, E. M., 'Geography of Minnesota.'