Marker No. 1

100 North Franklin Street

The Duluth Trading Company occupies this site, which originally housed four separate buildings. In one of the buildings prior to 1899, Hugo Neundorf operated a harness shop, and in the early 1900s, Peter Strum operated a cobbler shop.

 

The Strums lived above the shop and raised 15 children. The Smith family acquired the first building on the block in 1924. In 1926, Evelyn Smith installed deep fryers at the family's fish market and began selling fried fish for takeout. She obtained hearth-baked rolls from a local bakery and combined tartar sauce with fried perch fillets to make what would become her famous fish sandwich. It was this stroke of fate that catapulted the Smith family into the restaurant business and eventually led them to acquire the three adjacent buildings and develop a family-owned business until 1988.