The current building is the second depot built on this site. The first, a small wooden building, was built in 1869. That same year a large group of Swedish immigrants arrived in Duluth, seeking work on the first railroad line to serve the city, the Lake Superior and Mississippi. The Depot was designed by architectural firm
Peabody and Stearns. Many local materials were used in the French Norman-style building, including granite, sandstone, and yellow brick. After two years of construction, the Depot was completed in 1892 at a cost of $615,000, at which point the earlier depot was demolished. Over the decades, it served seven railroads:
Duluth & Iron Range,
Duluth, Missabe, & Iron Range,
Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic,
Duluth Missabe & Northern,
Great Northern Railway,
Northern Pacific, and the
Saint Paul & Duluth. The main entrance to the building on Michigan Street opened into a "general waiting room" (today known as the Great Hall) which featured a
newsstand and a
lunch counter. In addition the main floor also boasted a barber shop, a
Western Union telegraph office, a smoking room, a ladies' waiting room, and a men's toilet. A large
train shed originally covered the building's platforms, but it was removed in 1924 and replaced by the canopies that remain. Its last trains in the late 1960s were the Great Northern Railway's
Badger and
Gopher, both to
Minneapolis and
St. Paul (later absorbed into the
Burlington Northern Railroad) and the Northern Pacific Railway ran local unnamed service to St. Paul and Minneapolis and service to
Staples, Minnesota. The station closed in 1969. It was nominated as a unique example of the era's large railroad terminals and the connection they provided to the rest of the nation.
Former Amtrak service While The Depot continued to house its other tenants, Amtrak provided rail service to the station for nearly a decade (1977–1985). In 1975, Amtrak launched the
Arrowhead to run from the
Great Northern Depot in Minneapolis to
Superior, Wisconsin (south of Duluth, just across the Saint Louis Bay of Lake Superior).
Amtrak Thruway service connected Duluth to Superior until 1977, when
Arrowhead was extended the north to the Depot. In 1978, the
North Star replaced the
Arrowhead and extended the rail service south from
Minneapolis–Saint Paul to
Chicago,
Illinois. The next stop for both Amtrak trains was in Superior. In 1981, service by the
North Star was truncated to the
Midway Station in
Saint Paul. In 1985, Amtrak discontinued the
North Star and all passenger rail service to Duluth. ==Current operations==