Mick Hartley

With a lot of photos of US cities from the start of the 20th century – those away from the Eastern seaboard, at any rate – it's hard to credit that they've only been there a few decades, so well established do they seem. A testament, no doubt to the astonishing energy of those Yankee pioneers. 

Not so much with Duluth here, on the western end of Lake Superior. It really does look like a recent settlement of houses and rail tracks, stuck onto a bleak hillside.

Duluth, Minnesota. "Up the incline from Superior Street." 

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]