Found a 1987 mall directory in a dumpster behind the food court in Duluth

I used to just snap pics of crumbling storefronts and call it a day. Now I dig through dumpsters for old directories and flyers, which is how I pulled a waterlogged 1987 Northgate Mall map out of a trash pile in Duluth. The directory listed 84 stores, but my photos only showed 11 left, so I could finally match the dead anchor spots to their original names. That one soggy page explained why the food court sat empty on the east side, because the whole wing lost its roof in the 90s and nobody fixed it. Anyone else hunt for paper leftovers like this, or is it just me and the dumpster?

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shah.shane1d ago

I used to figure paper like that was just trash and not worth the bother, but your post made me see it holds the story of a place that nobody else kept. A mall wing losing its roof and never getting fixed explains so much about how these dead centers fell apart over time. Keep pulling those soggy pages out, because once they are gone, the whole layout is just guesswork.

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