Food Bank moves to Airpark 

The number of companies operating on Port Authority properties now totals 56, with more than 800 employees. Port Authority Business Development Director Andy McDonough profiles Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank, one of the newer of these clients, here: 

A land sale for relocation and expansion of a local nonprofit food distribution warehouse was approved by the Seaway Port Authority of Duluth board of commissioners in May, allowing Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank to consolidate existing facilities in Duluth and Hibbing, Minn., on Airpark industrial complex land. 

The company acquires, stores and distributes nationally and regionally donated food and grocery products to nonprofit food shelves, soup kitchens, and on-site feeding programs. 

Formerly Arrowhead Food Bank, Second Harvest Northern Lakes began in 1983 in response to extensive iron mineworker layoffs in Northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range communities. Originally started by Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (AEOA) as a clearinghouse for food donations, the food bank ensured thousands of miners and their families access to food and grocery products during their time of need. 

In 1986, the food bank partnered with Second Harvest National Food Bank Network, based in Chicago, and expanded its service area to include four Minnesota counties (St. Louis, Carlton, Lake and Cook) and two Wisconsin counties (Douglas and Bayfield). Second Harvest, the nation’s leading hunger organization, ensures that cereal, pasta, canned fruits and vegetables, meat and dairy products, snacks and toiletries make their way from national and regional manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, restaurateurs and growers to regional food banks for distribution to eligible non- profit agencies. 

In 1998, Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank distributed 958,410 pounds of food and grocery products, which assisted in feeding thousands of Northland families. 

Relocation of the food bank’s warehouse operation from Hibbing to Duluth will allow the food bank to expand its service and programs to non- profit agencies and increase the supply of donated products. Once in Duluth, the food bank will employ five full- time and one part- time employees. 

Mackinaw dry docks in Port of Duluth-Superior 

The U. S. Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw, usually a Port visitor only in January and March, spent part of the summer here this year — dry docking at Superior’s Fraser Shipyards, Inc. She arrived May 16 and was expected to spend 45 days here while Fraser completely removed her from the water to perform routine maintenance and inspections. This was the first time this work has been performed in the Port of Duluth- Superior. Previous dry dockings, done every four years, were at shipyards nearer the Mackinaw’s homeport of Cheboygan, Mich. 

Photo by Wesley Harkins 

An elevator by any other name …

A Superior grain elevator was renamed again in May. First it was Continental, then ConAgra, then Peavey-Connor’s Point, then Concourse, and then back to PeaveyConnor’s Point. 

Back to Peavey- Connor’s Point.

The elevator was built by the Chicago-North Western Railway in 1965 and operated for its first 20 years by Continental Grain Co. 

ConAgra became its operator in 1986, four years after acquiring the F. H. Peavey Co. The Peavey name had a long history in Duluth- Superior, dating back to 1898, when the then Minneapolis-based company opened an elevator on the Duluth side of the harbor. 

The Concourse name came into play when Concourse Grain was created in the summer of 1998 as part of a grain merchandising alliance between Farmland Industries, Inc., and ConAgra. When that agreement expired on May 22, 1999, the elevator’s name reverted to Peavey-Connor’s Point. 

Call it what you will — with its 8 mil lion-bushel capacity and a shiploading rate of 75,000 bushels per hour, Port locals will know what you’re talking about. 

Maritime Day Bonnie Marie Green, U. S Maritime Administration’s new deputy administrator for inland waterways and Great Lakes,    helped the Port of Duluth-Superior celebrate Maritime Day on May 21 as keynote speaker at the Propeller Club’s annual ceremony. Also with her was Howard Wilson, American Merchant Marine Veterans Viking Chapter vice president, on hand for the next day’s dedication of an American Merchant Marine and U. S. Navy Armed Guard memorial at the Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center. A seven-foot granite marker was unveiled to honor more than 250,000 U. S. Merchant Marine, civilians and reservists who transported troops and supplies during World War II.

From Finland to Cloquet  Ninety- two pieces of paper pulp mill machinery from Finland arrived in the Port of Duluth- Superior in June aboard the Dutch-flag vessel Lijnbaansgracht. They were offloaded by Lake Superior Warehousing Co., Inc., at Duluth’s Clure Public Marine Terminal.  Manufactured by Sunds Defibrator Woodhandling in Pori, Finland, the 868 metric tons of machinery were part of the final phases of a $528 million paper and pulp mill modernization and expansion by Potlach Corporation, Cloquet, Minn.  Perkins Specialized Transportation Contracting of Farmington, Minn., trucked the huge parts to Potlatch for use on a deicing deck and a debarking drum at the new pulp mill site. The forwarder for the shipment was ScanAm Transport, Atlanta, Ga.