Est. 1905 · 303 W Superior St · Duluth, Minnesota
The Columbia of Duluth
One corner. Four families. 121 years of getting men dressed for the days that count.
Book a VisitThe whole century is below
Act I · The Corner
Where the street car turns up the hill.
Great Eastern Clothing opens in the five-story Romanesque corner at Third Avenue West and Superior Street. Iron, pressed brick, and brown sandstone. A man could walk in off the street and walk out ready for whatever Duluth had planned for him.
The building was made to outlast its tenants. It has outlasted nearly everything else.
Act II · The Name
The Columbia name goes up over the door.
It has not come down since. Through the panic, the wars, and every winter Lake Superior could assemble, the sign stayed lit and the tape measure stayed warm.
The street car is gone. The corner is not.
Act III · Four Families
Fourth family in 121 years.
Most stores change hands like weather. This one changes hands like land. Each family measured by the one before, none of them in a hurry.
Billstein
The name goes up. The standard gets set.
Bradley
Holds the corner through the Depression and the war.
Barbo
A shoe man first. He earned the trade from the floor up.
Dickinson
The fourth family. The same corner. The same safe.
The Diebold safe came with the building. It still opens. So do we, six days a week.
Act IV · The Making
What a coat actually is.
A coat is not a picture of a coat. It is canvas, horsehair, and eight thousand stitches in a shape that took a century to learn.
Half canvas, floating free
Hand-padded lapel
A shoulder built, not glued
Working cuffs
We carry coats built like this because the alternative pills, sags, and gives itself away by Thanksgiving.
The century was the prologue.
What matters now is your moment.
The first hundred and twenty one years belonged to the families who kept the corner. The next fitting belongs to you.
Retail clothing has been sold at this corner continuously since 1891.
The name over the door has changed four times. The corner has not. What follows is the lineage, year by year. The Columbia of Duluth is not affiliated with Columbia Sportswear.
The lineage, 1891 to today
- 1891
Great Eastern Clothing
Matthew S. Burrow opens Great Eastern Clothing as the first major tenant of the new five-story Romanesque building at Third Avenue West and Superior Street, where the street car turns up the hill. Iron, pressed brick, and brown sandstone.
- 1905
The Columbia name arrives
Burrow retires. William Billstein, Frank Nathan, and Felix Sigman, who ran the Columbia Clothing Company across the harbor in West Superior, buy the store and bring the Columbia name to Duluth. This is the year we count from.
- 1936
The Bradley years
After William Billstein's death, the store passes to Leonard G. Bradley, his son Davis, and Walter Soneson. They hold the corner through the Depression and the war.
- 1953
Edward Barbo Sr.
A career shoe man buys the store from the Bradley estate. Glass Block shoe department in 1919, Lester Shoe Store in 1925, Nunn-Bush fitting at McGregor and Soderstrom in 1948. The renewed footwear wall today is a return to roots, not a pivot.
- 1974
Ed Barbo Jr.
Ed Jr. started on the floor in 1969 and took over in 1974, a handoff so seamless there was no need to change the signage. The Underground, the expansion, and the Ed Barbo's name all belong to his era.
- 2025
The Dickinson brothers
Kyle and Jeff Dickinson become the fourth family to keep the corner. The Diebold safe still opens.
Years on this corner
Still in the room
The Diebold safe
The safe came with the building. Black steel doors, gold lettering, in the store longer than any of the four families that have kept it.
It has held cash, paperwork, and whatever else a century of shopkeepers thought worth locking up. Mostly it holds the point: some things at this corner do not change hands. It still opens.
“What is going to stay is the welcoming atmosphere. That is a big part of what we do for the gentlemen in our region.”
Come stand where the century happened.
The fitting rooms are just past the safe. 303 W Superior St, Duluth.
Book a Visit