Overview

In 1868, following his father's death, fifteen-year-old Chester Congdon went to work in a lumber yard. He told his mother that someday he wanted to be better off than everybody else. Thanks to his skills as an attorney, wise investments, and shrewd business strategies that found him entangled with John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan, by 1902 Congdon had become one of the wealthiest men in Minnesota. In 1905, Chester and his wife, Clara, began building a grand home on the north shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota: Glensheen, a self-sustaining estate that survives today as a symbol of Congdon's success and Duluth's gilded age, when its East End mansions housed the families of grain trade commissioners, lumber barons, mining magnates--and their attorneys. Over 200 modern and historic photographs guide you along a detailed room-by-room tour of the Minnesota's most famous mansion and stroll through the estate grounds as you learn the story of the Congdon family and how Chester created the fortune that financed their grand home on Lake Superior's North Shore. Five percent of the publisher's sales of this book directly support Glensheen Historic Estate.

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9781887317405

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Tony Dierckins has written or co-written more than two dozen books, including Crossing the Canal: An Illustrated History of Duluth's Aerial Bridge and Lost Duluth: Landmarks, Industries, Buildings, Homes, and the Neighborhoods in which They Stood--both finalists for the Minnesota Book Award--as well as Historic Glensheen 1905-1930. Dierckins is the 2012 recipient of the Duluth Depot Foundation's Historic Preservation and Interpretation Award and the publisher of Zenith City Press and Zenith City Online, celebrating historic Duluth at www.zenithcity.com. Dennis O'Hara grew up in West Duluth, graduating from Denfeld High School and the University of Minnesota Duluth prior to studying at the New York Institute of Photography. His career in photography began in the early 1970s, operating cameras in a RF-4C reconnaissance jet with the Minnesota Air National Guard's 148th Fighter Wing. Zenith City Press has published two books of O'Hara's work, Picture Duluth: Photographs of the Zenith City and Tall Ships in the Zenith City. His photos can be found at northernimages.com.

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