Mark Twain
Mark Twain
"The coldest winter that I ever spent was a summer in …”
A) San Francisco
B) Duluth
C) None of the above
Long has the debate raged (albeit a moderate debate) over this phrase commonly (and wrongly) attributed to author and curmudgeon Mark Twain. It seems any city would like the privilege of having its warmest season insulted as bone-chilling.
The popular national vote favors San Francisco, where Mr. Twain once worked as a reporter, as target of this jibe. Regional sentiment leans toward Duluth as the punchline. But Twain scholars (those fact-loving spoilsports) believe that the Missouri native never thus insulted any city.
Dennis Medjo, director of Duluth’s Omnimax Theatre and William A. Irvin exhibit, recently brought to our attention a copy of an 1895 “brochure” indicating that Duluth should not be dismissed lightly as the coldest-summer candidate. The brochure was on the website of The Bancroft Library at the University of California-Berkeley and its Mark Twain Project.
It appears that Mr. Twain – or Mr. Samuel Clemens, if we want to be scholarly – did visit Duluth that summer, coming across Lake Superior on a white steamship from an appearance at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. On July 22, Twain delivered a lecture to hundreds of appreciative fans at the First Methodist Church.
After an intense investigation (we called the National Weather Service station in Duluth), LSM has determined that it wasn’t all that cold back then. The July 22, 1895, temperature reached 72 degrees Fahrenheit – although the by-the-lake reading could have been 50 or less, as we well know.
The only chill that Mr. Twain probably felt in Duluth was a review of his performance in the Duluth Evening Herald, which said: “His style is rather original. He speaks slowly with a peculiar drawl and gives one the idea that nothing on earth could make him talk any faster.
“As for the entertainment, however, it must be admitted that it was disappointing. Perhaps expectations were raised too high.”
Brrrr, how cold is that?