Manley Patrick Burns papers

Manley Patrick Burns was an amateur historian of West Duluth, the location of his home for many years. Very little is known of his life. He apparently lived in Duluth from the 1940s until his death in 1977. City directories indicate he did a variety of jobs over the years including an assembler with the Coolerator Company, a technician with the Department of Transportation and unspecifically listed as an inspector until his retirement in the late 1960s.

The collection contains photographs of Duluth, primarily West Duluth, gathered from a variety of sources. While some of the prints duplicate photographs known to be in the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center's General Historical Photograph Collection or other photographers' collections, or are copy prints, they have been kept together here as a cluster of information already grouped on the subject of West Duluth. Beyond photographs, the collection additionally contains one lengthy paper (388 pages) titled "History of West Duluth and Oneota 1853-1920" by Burns and several shorter papers by either himself or fellow West Duluthians on West Duluth history gathered by Burns. The lengthy history  was written from published sources and relies heavily on the work of Van Brunt and the 1916 West Duluth Booster Book by Morrison.