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This mission is dedicated to Angela Ekwall
(1983-2003)
May she rest in peace.

Historic Duluth, MN Armory

[Nov.03] - Exploration cut short!

Members: Frozen (me), Locksmith

First, some history of this amazing building:

(The Duluth Armory - image borrowed from [here])

(President Truman on stage at the Duluth Armory)

(Refugees from the 1918 Cloquet fire --
this and above were borrowed from [here])

The Armory was built in 1915 at a cost of $150,000 to serve as a training center for Minnesota National Guard and Naval Militia. Its drill floor was the second largest in the state, topped only by the Minneapolis Armory. In 1918 the Armory sheltered people from the Cloquet fire. From 1932 to 1966 it served as Duluth's entertainment center, featuring Will Rogers, Bob Hope, Doris Day, Gene Autry, Louis Armstrong, Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, the Everly Brothers, The Hollies, the Animals, and most notably: Buddy Holly.

 Duluth's Bob Dylan was inspired by Buddy Holly at this Armory.  Bob Dylan said this at his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech:

When I was about 16 or 17 years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three seats away from him, and he looked at me and…I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.

The City of Duluth took over the facility in 1978 when the National Guard moved to Airpark Boulevard where it still is today. Since that time, the Armory has hosted a few nonprofit organizations. But its primary function nowadays is to shelter various Department of Public Works heavy equipment that serve the area (snow plows, road graders, loaders, etc.)

The Armory was third on the list of Minnesota's top 10 most endangered Historic Properties of 2001.

 

So we decided to explore it:

After much thought, much freezing, much climbing and much caution, we entered the long-abandoned Armory armed with flashlights and my camera. From the first moment we stepped inside we could see that this was probably the most interesting building we'd ever explored. We were in the basement of the Armory staring at an old shooting range complete with discarded targets, bullet shells, and the horizontal 'clothesline' pulleys used to send and retrieve targets from the more dangerous end of the room.

(The shooting range)

(Uh oh, I see Locksmith down there at the end)

(Marks left by bullets where they flew through the targets)

(A chalkboard to keep score of points)

(Must be where the judge determines the points)

(Frozen [me] sits in a much-too-small desk)

(Various pipes running through this area)

(A very interesting lock securing the door to the transformer room)

(In memory of Angela Kay Ekwall)

We descended some stairs into the sub-basement and found two giant tanks, countless dead pigeons, and an ominous staircase leading up to the first floor.


(The giant tanks...boilers?)

(Appears to be a coal chute...filled with the remains
of dead pigeons and rodents... a mass grave)

(Close up of the carcasses/bones)

(Mmmm...some nice tasty maggots!)

(The ominous stairway...)

 

Climbing up to the first floor we entered a better kempt section of the Armory. It was still obviously abandoned, but it seemed to have working electricity. We searched carefully for alarms or motion sensors but could find none, so we continued. Walking into a huge warehouse type room we found some old bicycles, a 'Worry Free' brand car battery in serious disrepair, and many rooms, some ceilings supported with large 6x6 timber.

(This area was wide open and very large)

(A peek into one of the many rooms)

(Unfortunately this picture wasn't exposed enough to see
the large smashed open hole on the left side of the
'Worry-Free' battery. Not so 'Worry-Free' now is it?)

(Twisted up bicycle and a bench leaning
against the wall. Go figure.)

(Looking into one of the weapons closets. These rooms
had a very heavy metal blast door and sturdy concrete
all throughout the room with no possibility of outside entrance)

While exploring this large first floor area we had stopped several times, hearing something coming from above. Each time we decided it was just the building settling or some odd noise that we need not pay attention to. Moving cautiously into another large section of the first floor there suddenly came this very loud, eerie, echoing, robotic voice/sound that scared the friggin' daylights out of me. It's hard to describe what it sounded like, but calling it unpleasant is a gross understatement. Thinking we had somehow tripped an alarm, we searched our immediate area for any security devices. But we were in a large open area with no visible motion detectors/lasers anywhere. So I decided we'd better try to find the source of this noise before we run out assuming it's an alarm (this building was COOL and I didn't want to leave until I was SURE the cops were coming for us).

Locksmith and I each tried to follow the ghoulish noise to its source (ending up going in two completely different directions). It started getting louder to me and I finally managed to hear it more clearly. I heard, coming from a speaker playing much too loud, the distorted voice of some half-robot/half-man zombie creature groaning, "...the Police have been dispatched..." While his message was much longer than that, I didn't stick around to listen. I yelled "The Police are coming!" to Locksmith and we ran out of there as fast as we could.

Upon our exit we didn't walk directly to our car (we were the only people out that late at night and it might be obvious if police saw us walking to the car from the direction of the Armory. So we made a large sweep around several buildings and got to the car about 15 minutes later. There was still no police response to the alarm. I wondered how long we should wait before we go back in.

"The alarm must still be going off in there.
Maybe the Police are just slow tonight, it IS 3am on Thanksgiving night."

We waited in the car, spying on the Armory from a nearby parking lot, for 5 or 10 more minutes when we saw the first police vehicle (lights off) pull around the corner and park in front of the building (in the exact same place as the police car is parked in the [above photograph]).

Deciding to get out of there before anyone questions why we are the only car in a deserted parking lot at 3am, we exited the parking lot and drove right past the policeman as he got out of his vehicle. Rounding the next corner we passed a second cop car driving to the scene, lights off. We came back to check on the Police's progress about 15 or 20 minutes later (the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, right?). The two cars were no longer parked at the Armory but were staked out across from it in an inconspicuous area in the parking lot. We went back to Locksmith's room, made a frozen pizza, then left a little after 4am to tackle the Divine Drain.

Note:  Unfortunately there is quite a bit I've left out of this story (humorous parts too!) because it would give away entrance information.  Oh well.  You wish you knew the other humorous part?  Well you could click here to find out!