North Star Port

the President's action," wrote William Pinkerton of the Asso- ciated Press. "Their traditional Turkey Day games all had been arranged for Nov. 30." Franksgiving forced a cornucopia of conflicts. In the Big Ten, it put football coaches in violation of a league rule ending the season the Saturday before Thanksgiving. In West Virginia, it pushed Marshall College (now Marshall University) to play two games in three days. In Pennsylvania, Pinkerton wrote that it "raised hob" with a pair of traditions: Cornell playing Penn on Thanksgiving Day at Franklin Stadium in Philadelphia and the annual Army-Navy game typically played the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the same city. AT THE HEAD OF THE LAKES In Duluth, the city's college football slate finished Nov. 11, so gridiron scheduling was of no concern, but civic operations were somewhat crimped when Works Project Administration laborers observed the Nov. 23 Franksgiving. For everyone else, it was "just another Thursday," according to the Duluth News Tribune. At t h e d o c k s, wo r ke rs c o n t i n u e d unloading 218 railcars filled with an overflow crop of Canadian grain, the first of 3 million bushels due to Duluth- Superior elevators over a two-week span. Mostly wheat, it was ticketed for winter storage in Duluth-Superior, then export to Great Britain in the spring. On Lake Superior, the season's final iron ore shipment from Duluth sailed aboard the William B. Schiller, a vessel eventually scrapped at Duluth's Azcon Metals recycling facility in the 1980s. For the season, Duluth-Superior moved 26 mil- lion tons of iron ore; far more than 1938, but sig- nificantly less than 1937 (42.9 million tons). Scrap iron also flowed from the Head of the Lakes, help- ing feed the nation's blast furnaces and tempering somewhat the demand for iron ore. There would be no such moderation in the decade to come. On the streets, the Duluth Retail Merchants Association announced that Christmas shopping windows would be unveiled and street decorations illuminated simultaneously the night before the real Thanksgiving—Nov. 30. DULUTH-SUPERIOR HAS ITS DAY It's impossible to measure Thanksgiving spirit, but in Minnesota, the traditional Thanksgiving Day quantifiably topped Franksgiving for warmth. Duluth hit a record-setting 51 degrees Fahrenheit on Nov. 30, 1939, prompting some golfers and tennis enthusiasts to work up a proper appetite for their late-day feasts. The harbor was relatively quiet, with only two arrivals and five departures, one carrying scrap iron, one carrying packaged freight and three carrying grain. Emerging from the mid-1930s Dust Bowl era, the port's 1939 grain float was robust. Driven primarily by wheat shipments, tonnage topped 2 million for the first time since 1928, with a dollar value estimated at more than $51 million. Duluth's Glass Block department store sat decorated and waiting for Friday, with "all 60 departments completely stocked with gifts for all." For most, it was a joyous day filled with family, food and fun. For some, it was somber. This was especially true for Duluth's Finnish Americans. That day, Soviet forces invaded Finland, sparking the Winter War and fanning flames of conflict that would soon engulf the world. To most Americans, however, those flames still seemed an ocean away. Navy football head coach Col. Emery "Swede" Larson knew better. The Minnesota native was in Annap- olis, Maryland, preparing his Midshipmen for their clash with Army, still set for Satur- day, Dec. 2, despite the Franksgiving-fueled scheduling shakeups. An active-duty Marine officer, Larson knew all too well what likely lay beyond that field of friendly strife. For the moment though, his boys were safe and ready for a second helping of Thanksgiving. DULUTHPORT.COM | 11 LEFT: Navy football head coach Col. Emery Larson, a Minneapolis West High School graduate and major in the Marine Corps, shares a moment with Al Bergner, 1939 captain and starting tackle for the Midshipmen.

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