Duluth Armory Empty building once hosted biggest entertainers of the decades

By Kelly Busche kbusche@duluthnews.com

The Duluth Armory, which currently stands shuttered, was once the hub of the region’s entertainment.

The 1915 building is located on the corner of London Road and South 13th Avenue East. It once hosted countless notable performances until it turned into a storage facility in the late 1970s, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.

However, the Armory initially had a different purpose. It served as a triage center for victims of the deadly Spanish flu as well as the Cloquet fire, both of which occurred in 1918.

In the winter of 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (the “Big Bopper”) performed at the Armory three days before they died in an Iowa plane crash. During that Duluth leg of their “Winter

Dance Party” tour performance, a young Bob Dylan stood among the crowd — a moment he cited as influential during a Grammy acceptance speech. Other notable figures who have appeared at the Duluth Armory include President Harry S. Truman, Bob Hope, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Dale Carnegie, Patsy Cline, the Everly Brothers, Oral Roberts, Hank Williams Sr., Liberace and John Philip Sousa.

As Duluth later built a more modern Army facility and arena-auditorium, usage of the Armory for military and entertainment purposes waned. In the late 1970s, the city of Duluth purchased the building and it then became a home for storing maintenance vehicles and municipal offices, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.

Then, it seemed the building’s end was near. It was scheduled to be demolished in 2001 until a local group of people working to save the building purchased it. The group, called the Armory Arts and Music Center, funded renovation projects to fix some of the problems that influenced the demolition order, according to Business North.

The local architects who designed it were at the forefront of a new era of armory designs, as they used sleek and simple designs instead of castle-like features, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. And, with over 107,000 square feet, it was the largest armory in Minnesota, according to the Historical Society. u