DULUTH — Holiday visitors to Glensheen mansion this year have full access to the tree-filled and candlelit 39-room house and its vintage nativity scenes, family ornaments and party place settings.
The mansion's current keepers say they want visitors to experience the house the way Chester Congdon's family did. While the turn-of-the-century estate on Lake Superior sees its most traffic in July and August, its holiday display gives the historic house another boost of visitors before settling into the quieter period — which lasts through the coldest months.
"Until you can see grass again," said Glensheen's marketing director, Mike Mayou.
A late-year visitor boost is a trend among local businesses and attractions that lean into the holiday season — either by lining the harborside with cottages for local makers to sell wares or by turning Bayfront Festival Park into acres upon acres of bright lights and holiday scenes.
While tourism numbers are still rolling in for 2023, Tricia Hobbs, the city's senior economic developer, said tourism tax collection is at a record high. The city collects tax on food and beverages (2.25%) and lodging (3%) — money that goes back to the local tourism industry. Between January and September 2023, that amounted to more than $11 million, a 7.4% increase from last year, she said.
'Christmas City, wonderful city'
For decades, the change of season here has been marked by the annual Christmas City of the North Parade, held the Friday before Thanksgiving. This procession along Superior Street was born in the mid-1950s as a way to push shoppers to the downtown retail district.
It also serves as a pop culture credit for the city: Merv Griffin recorded Hibbing native Don Peterson's song "Christmas City" at the behest of Bob Rich, who was the local NBC affiliate station manager.
The station's current vice president/general manager Todd Wentworth has only anecdotal evidence from parade spotters with overhead vantage points that this year's event was the largest in recent years. He said most parade-goers come from a 60-mile radius of Duluth — though some travel here from the Twin Cities.
