Old and New from the North Shore

I made a whirlwind trip to Duluth and Two Harbors recently. Most of what I have to show is old and cool... two of the new things are not so cool, but one is.

From Two Harbors, this is the typewriter that was used to start the company now known as 3M, which as any good Minnesotan knows, started in Two Harbors —even though it's been based in Saint Paul (er, the suburb Maplewood) for most of its existence:

Also in Two Harbors, I saw this gilded glass lettering, which is degrading in an interesting way:

Then, in Duluth, I came across this gorgeous lettering and archway...

...and this gold painted lettering:

It was on a safe, now located inside a cookwear shop. The thing about this lettering is that it's probably 100 to 110 years old, but you can still see the guidelines that were used by the person who hand-lettered it. (Click to enlarge the photo and look closely by the NNs in MINN.)

As for the new things that are not so great, while I was in the Lincoln Park area to get ice cream, I saw two typos on signs:

Yes, that does say Linclon Park up there on the billboard-sized sign above the ice cream shop. (Do they all know it's up there and hope we are not noticing?)

But of course there are lots of great new things as well, and I didn't take photos of them. One that I did capture was this, just inside the entrance of the Global Village store:

I liked both the quote and the collaged fist.

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