The history of Irving, Duluth, Minnesota

Irving grew for the same reason the rest of West Duluth did, and its housing shows the reason more plainly than most.

The western end of the city expanded in the late nineteenth century around the docks, rail yards and industry along the St. Louis Bay. Irving sits directly between that working waterfront and the Grand Avenue corridor, on flat ground within walking distance of both, which made it obvious housing ground for people employed on the bay. The build window from roughly 1895 to 1965 tracks that economy.

The duplex stock is the historical evidence. When a working district needs housing quickly and cheaply, and when households take in tenants or house extended family, two-flats and side-by-sides get built and single houses get divided. Irving's 13.4% duplex share is the residue of that pattern, and it is why the neighborhood is denser than its low-rise appearance suggests.

Grassy Point on the bay is the other historical marker. The St. Louis River estuary here was working ground for a long time, and the shoreline still carries rail and industrial use alongside the restored and public sections. The estuary as a whole has been the subject of decades of restoration work, much of it coordinated through the St. Louis River Alliance, and the improvement in water quality and habitat over that period is one of the genuine regional success stories.

The rest of the arc is West Duluth's: a long industrial plateau, a long decline through the second half of the twentieth century, and a citywide reputation formed in those decades that has outlasted the conditions producing it. What Irving kept through all of it was its park, its grid and its flat ground.

History next door

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