What will put Duluth on the map?

It seems to me that Duluth's problem is that it always has been on the threshold of "something big" that will "put us on the map," but we never quite cross that threshold. Something always comes up to prevent it.

Oh, there have been significant advances, but nothing to really put us on the map, meaning universal recognition as the place where ... where ... Well, that's a hard sentence to finish.

Some people across the country and world know Duluth is at the head of Lake Superior, which comes as close as anything to putting us on the map, but that knowledge is not universal. Do not ask one of Jay Leno's street interviewees what Duluth is known for.

When Duluth was established, sometime in the 1850s, it went through a period of small boom and a good deal of bust, but the discovery of iron ore on the Iron Range in the 1890s would really put us on the map because that ore would have to be shipped through Duluth (and Superior).

And that shipping did put us on some maps, eventually logging Duluth's shipping tonnage as second only to New York City, but that message didn't get around too much. Plenty of Duluthians didn't even know it, just as many didn't know that it was said that Duluth had more millionaires per capita than, what, New York again? I can't recall.

At the same time, the vast timber resources of northern Minnesota potentially put us on the map until they cut down all the trees and there were no more significant natural forests.

A couple of times in our early history -- first 20 years or so of the 20th century -- there was a lot of talk that Duluth would become the new Chicago, which already was on the map. Minneapolis? Forget about it. Jerkwater town compared to what Duluth would be someday. Someday. You watch, Duluth will really be on the map.

How could the city at the western end of Lake Superior miss? It would become the nation's premier trans-shipment point as goods from the East would be shipped this far by water, then transferred to trains and make their way west, and vice versa. Then we'd really be on the map.

It almost worked, but not quite. Somebody had the bright idea to dig the Panama Canal about then. Who needs to take goods off of boats and transfer them to trains when you can ship them all the way on the water? It put Panama on the map, but not Duluth.

Every time some movie studio has come here to film a movie, we think it will put us on the map, but it never does. We have a moment in the sun, and then it's back to the "threshold of great prosperity."

Why all this now? Because a week ago, Duluth had one brief shining moment on the international map. It took a woman from Brainerd to allegedly download a bunch of songs from the Internet and distribute them, drawing a civil lawsuit from the recording industry that was heard in Duluth's federal courthouse -- and around the world.

Interest in the case really put us on the map. Now, if we can only build on it.

I'd suggest everybody start downloading, but that would be illegal. Better fill in the Panama Canal instead.

E-mail Jim Heffernan at vheffernan@earthlink.net . For previous columns go to duluth newstribune.com.