The character of Riverside, Duluth, Minnesota
Part of the Riverside neighborhood guide. Back to the full guide.
Riverside is quiet in a way that only very small, very far-out neighborhoods manage. It rates 4.6, and the sound is Grand Avenue traffic, water, and whatever is happening at the marina.
The settlement pattern follows the bank. Streets bend with the river rather than running in a grid, houses sit at various angles and setbacks, and the hillside behind cuts the neighborhood off from anything to the north except Proctor over the top.
The mix of housing is visible and unbothered: year-round cottages next to properties that were clearly cabins once, postwar ramblers, and the occasional newer build on frontage. Nothing matches, which is part of the appeal.
A Saturday here is the water or the trail. Boats out of the marina, fishing, paddling on the estuary, riding south on the Munger, or five minutes up to Spirit Mountain. In winter it is skiing, snowmobiles on the trail corridor, and ice fishing on Spirit Lake.
What is missing is anything social that is not private. No shop, no cafe, no confirmed congregation, no community building. Social life here is neighbors, the marina and the trail.
Landmarks
The marina on Spring Street, on the site where the McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company operated in 1918. It is the clearest physical link between the neighborhood's industrial origin and its present use.
The 1918 shipyard on Spring Street that gave Riverside its reason to exist, building vessels during the First World War. The site is now the Spirit Lake Marina.
The wide reach of the St. Louis River the neighborhood sits on, part of the estuary system above Morgan Park.
Character next door
Northeast, where the Munger and Western Waterfront trails begin and Indian Point gives boat access.
SmithvilleSouth along the river, sharing the same Census tract and a similar owner-heavy river-corridor profile.
Morgan ParkSoutheast along the river, the 1913 US Steel company town built of concrete block.
ProctorNorth over the hill, its own school district and a walkable small-town main street.
Fond du LacSouthwest along the river, the oldest community in Duluth and even quieter.