Superior Public Library Murals tell history & Native American stories

The Superior Public Library has several murals on their walls telling the history of Superior and Douglas County. The murals were painted by Carl Gawboy, a member of the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Ojibwe.

The different paintings first start with the creation of the Earth legend from an Algonquin/Ojibwe perspective. The final mural depicts the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald.

Kelly Wiisanen with the Superior Public Library said the murals were commissioned back in 1992, and Gawboy finished painting the final mural in 2002.

“There’s a self-guided audio tour that people can take when they come in here,” Wiisanen said. “They just need to pick up a pamphlet at the front desk and there are QR codes that they can scan with their smartphones to hear the history. Another way that they can do it, if they don’t have a smartphone, they can do a self-guided tour with a booklet that we have up front.”

Wiisanen also said several buildings depicted in the murals are still standing today, where people can see what they looked like in the past.

“The old fire hall is still standing in East End. So you can check out the mural here and check out the building in the East End,” Wiisanen said. “The Evening Telegram building is still standing on Tower Avenue, and also the stands were taken down at the football field. But you can see the memory of the football fields still lives on in our murals”

The Superior Public Library also has an audio tour to go along with the murals which are voiced by mayor Jim Paine. For more information about the Murals you can read more here. For other stories with the Superior Public Library you can read more here.