Boost Duluth Day-Part 1

The First Officers for Club 25

by Rachael E. Martin, Club #25 Historian

E. J. Filiatrault, president of Duluth Rotary Club #25, managed the first "Duluth Made Exposition" at the Duluth Auditorium in October 1912. The Rotary Club, Commercial Club, West End Commercial Club and the Builders Exchange worked cooperatively to put this three-day event together. The purpose of the exposition was to "Boost Duluth" by showing exhibits of Duluth-made goods.
 

The event began on Wednesday, October 29, with a "monster" parade of a thousand men and women employed at Duluth businesses. The parade began at the Commercial Club, located in the Duluth Athletic Club building, went down to Superior Street, east to 3rd Avenue East and up to First Street to the Duluth Auditorium. At that time the Duluth Auditorium at 302 East 1^st St. was managed by Rotarian Sam H. Marshall.
 

A 25-member fife and drum corps headed the parade, followed by 200 employees of the Scott-Graff Lumber Co. Other businesses with large numbers in the parade included the Elliot Meat Co., with Rotarian Warren E. Mendenhall as president, and the Bridgeman & Russell Co., with Rotarian Henry Bridgeman as owner.
 

The West Duluth Commercial Club carried a white banner with a red center, which said, "Duluth -- The Coming Spot." Hundreds of people lined Superior Street for the parade.
 

When the marchers reached the Duluth Auditorium, the crowds began to stream in. At the opening of the big show, E. J. Filiatrault and John T. Armstead, another member of Duluth Rotary Club No. 25, addressed and welcomed the crowd. Nearly 11,000 people crowded into the Duluth Auditorium Wednesday night to view 62 exhibits and collect souvenirs distributed with a lavish hand.

The exhibit organizers prepared 20,000 copies of a booklet to be handed out called the Duluth Blue Book with names and addresses of all Duluth manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers.
 

With the aisles filled, thousands waited hours for the crowds to thin out before they could enter. Once inside, the "Keep to the Right" rule went into effect and the human stream was an orderly one. Throughout the evening musicians from the Central high school, the Scottish Rite quartet and others performed.
 

The exhibits showed how modern Duluth was in 1912. One exhibit by the civic Department of Health had an electric light that flashed every time a baby dies in the world and every time a consumptive dies of tuberculosis. The Duluth-Edison Co. exhibit demonstrated all manner of home electrical appliances -- heaters, fans, lights, toasters, stoves and irons, while the Consolidated Stamp & Printing Co. exhibited a printing press in operation.
 

The first day of the "Duluth Made Exposition," Duluth's first exposition of local products, far exceeded the expectations of the planners. Even more was planned for the second and third days. To be continued...