Irked Irvin denies haunting vessel...

SS William A. Irvin in Minnesota Slip (Wikipedia)

Written by By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune Saturday, 10-15-22

 So, the SS William A. Irvin is haunted, huh? Well, shiver me timbers, matey!

 

Nice timing, though, for devotees of paranormal phenomena to be making a bid to determine if the old ore carrier, one of Duluth’s main tourist attractions, is host to ghosts, who reportedly make quite a bit of noise on board. Spooky noises. Unexplained bumps in the night.

 

That nice timing, of course, is the close proximity to Halloween 2022, which experts predict will be very similar to Halloween 2021 and back through the years. (Exception: COVID caused a decline in trick or treating starting in 2020, police say.)

 

You wonder what William A. Irvin himself would think about all this. He’s sort of lost in the shuffle in the shadow of the big boat (never call an ore boat a ship nor Lake Superior’s shore a coast or you will be branded as an outsider).

 

Well, a few folks dedicated to the supernatural decided to find out recently by asking Mr. Irvin himself. (I get to call him Mr. in print because he is doornail dead.)

 

You wonder how in blazes that could work since the boat’s namesake died in 1952? A seance, of course. How else?

 

So a small group of paranormal investigators sought and got permission to have their seance in the captain’s quarters of the William A. Irvin (the boat) itself. A half dozen gathered around a map table headed by what is called a “medium.” This is the person who has special powers to contact — brace yourself here — THE DEAD! Most mediums are women as was ours.

 

Mediums are very mysterious people who operate in darkened rooms with people seeking to contact their dead loved ones in the beyond. They sit around a table, their hands extended with their fingertips touching one another. As I understand it, from countless movies that recreate that scene, the medium calls out to the person in the beyond and invites them to answer questions their loved-ones around the table might have.

 

I have never participated in anything like this. I prefer medium rare.

 

Meanwhile, back in the captain’s quarters of the good boat (can’t say ship) William A. Irvin, the paranormal investigators eagerly awaited responses from William himself as the medium called forth into the dark and mysterious beyond.

 

They knew this would take some doing, Mr. Irvin having been gone for 70 years. But lo and behold, the medium got a response.

 

“Who’s calling?” said a gravelly voice from the long beyond. It was William A. himself. The medium filled him in and asked him if he was haunting the ore boat bearing his name, or knew who was. “The clanging of chains folks hear on board was not the ghost of Jacob Marley, that’s for sure,” said the medium.

 

“Ghosts? Paranormal activities on my ship?” respond Irvin.

 

“Not ship, boat,” the medium corrected.

 

“Oh, sorry. I’m obviously an outsider,” apologized Irvin who never resided in Morgan Park where he ran a steel plant as the president of United States Steel Corporation during much of the Great Depression. “I was born in Pennsylvania and died in New York.”

 

“But what about the paranormal activities on the boat named for you?” the medium went on.

 

“Well, I’m not haunting it,” Irvin said, bluntly. “Do you think a successful businessman like me, who rose to the presidency of one of the largest corporations in America, would want to be known as a ghost? Not on your life,”

 

“Oops, sorry,” said the medium. “No insult intended.”

 

The group of paranormal investigators with their fingertips touching around the table were becoming greatly disappointed. The medium tried to make amends.

 

“Of course, you’re almost as well known around Duluth as the namesake of an annual 5K,“ she pointed out.

 

“What in heaven’s name is a 5K?” Mr. Irvin asked, his voice fading away as his listeners stared blankly at one another. He was gone.

 

Undaunted, the group left the captain’s quarters and repaired to the poop deck, viewing the nearby Aerial Lift Bridge where one of their number had heard a report of an unidentified flying object shaped like a saucer swooping through the bridge one dark night.

 

A mystery for another day.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Duluth: Out in the middle of somewhere...

Written for the Duluth News Tribune by Jim Heffernan/July 9, 2022

So, the people in charge of promoting Duluth have come up with a new slogan: “Love it Like We Do” (even when it’s foggy, rainy and chilly on the Fourth of July?). Those of us who live here must love it or we wouldn’t have stayed, right? I have lived in Duluth for a long, long time.

 

Long enough to remember when we had other catchy slogans like “One Great Lake and a Whole Lot More” and even “Hay Fever Capital of…” of something. I forget. The Midwest? Maybe America. The world?

 

Duluth got a lot of mileage way back in its colorful history by declaring itself the Hay Fever Capital. Those were the days before widespread air conditioning, when people from the dust bowl and pollen-rife breadbasket of the nation sneezed a lot in the summer, eyes watering.

 

Duluth welcomed them with open arms and frequent cool breezes off Lake Superior, just as we welcome their successors today by sharing with them our love of, to recall another old slogan: “The Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas.”

 

Several years ago the old Duluth Convention and Tourist Trap Bureau people were retiring whatever slogan was then extant and asked the public for ideas for a new slogan. I had an idea and let them know what it was. Now I share it in print for the first time: “Duluth: Out In the Middle of Somewhere.”

 

That has a ring to it, don’t you think? Kind of exciting, combining thoughts of our vast outdoors opportunities (out in the middle of nowhere) with our multifarious urban amenities (somewhere). Never heard a word from them, making me feel like chopped liver. It doesn’t take much to make me feel like chopped liver.

 

Onward. I read in this newspaper that another group has been organized to promote community learning and civic engagement here. They plan to meet monthly at a forum called The Lyceum. Sounds like fun but is that a good name? Lyceum?

 

Of course it’s drawn from the ancient Greek venue where the philosopher Aristotle said all kinds of wise things. But to Duluthians of a certain maturity it brings back thoughts of an old theater downtown on the site where the big Maurices building now stands. After an auspicious past, the Lyceum eventually became known as “The Rats’ Palladium.”

 

When it was completed in 1893 (I don’t actually remember the grand opening — I’m not THAT old) it was considered one of the finest theaters north of Chicago. Huge stage, hosting some of the top touring theater companies of the day featuring well-known stars.

 

The Lyceum Theater had an orchestra (that’s what they call the main street-level auditorium) and three — yes, three — balconies. Total capacity was upwards of 1,500 souls.

 

By the time I came along 50-some odd (I’ll say) years later it had gone down hill quite a bit. Its imposing entrance on Superior Street was covered over and a tacky marquee placed on the front of the building advertising movies — two at a time for 50 cents.

 

As a kid I loved going to the Lyceum on Saturdays, gobbling 10-cent popcorn and sitting through four hours of second-run movies.

 

But by then the grand old theater’s reputation had slipped to the point where it was sniggered around my junior high school that the top balcony — the third balcony — was actually (cover your eyes if you are sensitive) a balcony of ill repute. This unfounded rumor was believed because there was a blinking red light atop the marquee outside. Blinking red lights used to connote…well, you know.

 

Years later, after I’d reluctantly grown up and become a fledgling journalist, the Lyceum showed its final double feature in 1966, was shut down, and razed when urban renewal wiped out Duluth’s bowery, including a tavern down the street with the oxymoronic name “Classy Lumberjack.”

 

But before it was demolished, an open house was held for people to wander at will through the theater. It allowed me to stand on a stage where many stars of the long past had performed, their names still well known then but not now. Does anyone still know who Sarah Bernhardt was?

 

Before I exited that day, recalling those old rumors of nefarious goings on on the third balcony, I wandered up there to see what it was like. It was filled with old rolled up carpets and other discarded stuff from the building.  No evidence whatsoever of a sordid past.

 

Good thing. If all those rumors had been true, it certainly could have negated the slogan “Love it Like We Do.”

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

Can't beat Duluth's fireworks...

We spent the Fourth in town this year and once again were not disappointed by the Duluth fireworks display to cap the day. For all you former Duluthians... and all you wannabes... I just have to share this gorgeous photo taken by my friend, Gary Kelleher, that evening. He captured a real Duluth scene from the lake side, highlighting the Aerial Lift Bridge lit up in red, white and blue while the sky lit up with fireworks. Spectacular!

Photo courtesy of Gary Kelleher

Duluth's tall ships: Ghost of Marlon Brando on tall ship, Bounty II...

By Jim Heffernan  

I saw Marlon Brando on the Duluth waterfront opening night of the great festival of tall ships. (The photo to your right is of one of those tall ships passing under Duluth's Aerial Bridge during the Grand Parade of Sail in Canal Park on 7-29-10. Someone my son knows took this amazing shot while perched on top of the Marine Museum.)

Of course the actor is dead and gone, but as I stood alongside the Bounty II, the sailing ship built for his 1962 film version of “Mutiny on the Bounty,” it didn’t take much imagination to envision Brando, as Fletcher Christian, and Trevor Howard, as Captain Bligh, glaring each other down on the deck of the imposing sailing vessel.

And we can likely thank Brando, should we ever make it to wherever his afterlife put him (one wonders), for the ship being here at all, or even existing. As I stood on the quay just a few feet from the Bounty II I found myself thinking about its journey from 1962’s filming in the South Seas to Duluth 48 years later.

In 1962 there was no bigger movie star in Hollywood – in the world – than Brando. He could take on any project he chose and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men at a movie studio would see to it that it would happen.

So, if he wanted to remake “Mutiny on the Bounty” (it had been filmed in 1935 with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton in the leading roles) it would be done. And if to do so it required building a working replica of the 18th century ship Bounty, it would be done. It was done.

And as we see this weekend on the Duluth waterfront, the Bounty II is still sailing the seven seas, and now the greatest of the unsalted seas, Lake Superior, thanks to Marlon Brando and some of the king’s horses and men of almost 50 years ago.

To see The Grand Parade of Sail, catch this video on KQDS Radio Facebook page HERE. It's utterly amazing and majestic.


To check out the activities involved with the big Tall Ships in Duluth, click this Visit Duluth site HERE.