This week a hundred years ago, locusts attacked a woman on Superior Street, infiltrating every building in town and looting Park Point bathers – who were reportedly “driven into the water to escape the forces of the invasion.”
According to the News Tribune of July 9, 1921, opinions differed as to the cause of the onslaught: some claimed it was “locust year”; others blamed the heat. The first hordes arrived after sunrise. By noon, the newspaper reported, the streets were flooded.
Newspaper reports – under the heading “Hordes of locusts beat the city” drew colorful anecdotes of the invasion.
In one instance, a girl on Superior Street and Lake Avenue “frantically swung her purse and slapped her georgette-draped shoulder.” A crowd of pedestrians, shop clerks and patrol officers are said to have gathered around them.
This week 100 years ago, Duluth was attacked by locusts.
“Suddenly the girl’s handbag stopped flying in the air,” according to the News Tribune. “At her feet was a grasshopper, which after one last decisive blow out of the sack with the last kick.
“There, that bit me,” said the girl, breathless and red with the exertion. With a shake of the head, indignant at the scene that had caused it, she went away. “
Jimmy Sheehan, a janitor at City Hall, was reportedly forced to hang screens on the doors of offices near the building’s entrance.
Some of the insects made a fatal mistake by jumping against mirror glass windows and brick walls.
“Thousands of intruders,” it was reported, “lay dead on Superior Street.”
The end of the day brought a truce – helped along with the darkness and light rain.
Once Upon a Time in Duluth is featured on the News Tribune Minute podcast.
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