Curator's Spotlight for May: Duluth’s Board of Trade Building
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Did you know that the Board of Trade building on the corner of 3rd Ave W and 1st Street was the fifth home of the Duluth Board of Trade? Perhaps you've heard about the two Board of Trade buildings, but what happened to their other homes? And what even is a “board of trade?”
The story of Duluth’s Board of Trade begins, as many Duluth stories do, with Philadelphia financier Jay Cooke. Following some initial success during the fur trade era from the mid-1600s to the mid-1800s, Duluth’s future as a city was looking bleak in 1857. A financial panic had ended a recent boom, and the city was a ghost town. As the legend goes, there were just 14 families living on Minnesota Point a decade later. Still, there were those that saw the potential for a regional hub of shipping and commerce. The major missing piece was the railroad. There was hope that the Lake Superior & Mississippi (LS&M) Railroad would connect St. Paul to Duluth, but investors ran out of money before much progress was made on the project. Enter Jay Cooke.
Fresh off bankrolling the Union Army during the Civil War, Cooke was looking to invest in the development of the western frontier. The issue was that he wasn’t initially convinced that Duluth was a worthwhile investment, but that changed after he visited in 1868. After some convincing from George Stuntz, Duluth’s first permanent white resident, Cooke eventually saw the value of the head of the lake and bought into the plan to extend the LS&M to Duluth.
As the railroad was being built, other important infrastructure was needed for the port town to thrive. Cooke, along with Roger Munger, Clinton Markell, and C. H. Graves, financed the construction of grain elevators at the terminus of this new railroad. The first grain elevator, Elevator A, was built on Lake Superior at the end of 3rd Ave E in 1870 with a capacity of 350,000 bushels of grain. The LS&M would be completed in August 1870. The other major piece of infrastructure was the Duluth Ship Canal, which began construction in late 1870 and was completed in 1871.
The amount of grain flowing through Duluth would continue to grow over the following decade. Once the Northern Pacific railroad connected west, wheat poured in from the Dakotas and other parts of the western frontier. The first load of grain, 11,500 bushels, was shipped from Elevator A on the steamer St. Paul in May 1871. A vial of this grain is part of the collection of the St. Louis County Historical Society and will be on display during the May 7th tour.
Despite Jay Cooke’s 1873 financial failure and subsequent national panic, the roots of the Duluth grain industry were planted. By 1880, the capacity of the grain elevators reached 3.3 million bushels, with a growing number of business interests involved in the buying and selling of grain, the management of the grain elevators, and shipping along the Great Lakes. With local industry growing, Clinton Markell, A. J. Sawyer, Owen Ferguson, W. T. Hooker, W. W. Davis, Roger S. Munger, C. H. Graves, and Walter Van Brunt filed the articles of incorporation for the Duluth Board of Trade on January 6, 1881. A board of trade is defined by the Securities Institute of America as a commodity exchange that provides a marketplace for agricultural and financial futures. Think the New York Stock Exchange, but instead of stocks and bonds, members traded wheat and corn. As their first home, meetings were held for an hour a day in the grain office of the first Board president, A. J. Sawyer.
George Spencer and Melvin Forbes commissioned architect George Wirth to build the Board’s second home in 1882. The Metropolitan Block at 113-119 W Superior St was built to house the American Exchange Bank and the Board of Trade. However, the board quickly outgrew this space, leading to the construction of their first dedicated building in 1885. As time went on, the Metropolitan Block became primarily known as a dry goods store. While the building is still standing, its original facade has long since been replaced.
After all the financial struggles and the population booms and busts, the construction of a dedicated Board of Trade building was a major success for Duluth. The city, with a population of 3,500 in 1880, grew to 18,000 in just 5 years. The success of the Board of Trade was seen as a significant contributing factor to Duluth’s newfound prosperity. Even railroad executive and “empire builder” James J. Hill was in attendance for the building’s opening reception. This third home was a four-story, Fond du Lac sandstone and terracotta trim building located on the corner of 3rd Ave W and Superior St. It was the first design from the partnership of legendary Duluth architects George Wirth and Oliver Traphagen. It also filled up fast.
As the organization continued to grow, the Board considered constructing a new building elsewhere. Many grain traders already had offices in other buildings due to a lack of available accommodations. However, the poor financial state of the country in 1893 led them to decide against expanding to another new space. That was until the building on Superior Street caught fire on Sunday, February 11, 1894. When firefighters arrived, they discovered that the nearest fire hydrants were frozen solid. The fire was aided by the cold wind off the lake, and by the following morning there was little left of the Board of Trade building.
There was no time wasted approving the previously disregarded plans for a new building, with the cornerstone being laid less than six months after the previous building burned down. While the Board waited for construction to be completed, the Manhattan Block at 410-416 W Superior St became the fourth home of the Board of Trade. Built in 1890, this was also the home of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce until 1900. The building was razed in 1941, replaced by the Northland Building.
The fifth home of the Board of Trade would open the following April, 1895. To hear how this story concludes, please join us on our tour of the Board of Trade building on Thursday, May 7. Inside, you’ll see the investments made by Duluth’s early wealthy elite, signs of the original trade floor, as well as a look at artifacts donated by the Duluth Board of Trade.
-Terry Johnson, Curator
