Archive Dive with the Superior Telegram

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 co...

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 a...

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...

"Hitch a ride" on the South Shore Railroad through Douglas County during this month's Archive Dive podcast. Brian Paulson, local historian and member of the Old Brule Heritage Society, joins us again to explore the vanished communities that sprang up along the tracks of what was officially known as the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway in the early 1900s. "These were not actually towns. The...

Over a century ago, an arch honoring Civil War veterans stood over the intersection of Broadway Street and Tower Avenue in Superior.  "It was like our Aerial Lift Bridge," said local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek. "It was so iconic even though many people have never seen it. It's because of the postcards that people know about it."  On this month's episode of Archive Dive, Meronek...

Before U.S. Highway 2 brought visitors into Superior from the east; there was the Northern Pacific Railroad. And in the early 1900s there were many small communities along that rail line. Communities that today have almost completely disappeared. "I don't like to call them ghost towns," Brian Paulson, a local historian, said. "Mostly because they weren't towns, they were settlements that were loca...

Welcome to the first episode of Archive Dive by the Superior Telegram. Each month, host and Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood dips into the archives of historic events, people and places in Superior and Douglas County with local historians.    In our first episode, we look back at a Superior wedding that transfixed the nation. The Feb. 10, 1945 marriage of America's Ace of Aces Maj. Richard I. Bong...

First episode slated for February 9, 2022.