Photo Credit: d.umn.edu
DULUTH, Minn. (AP/WCCO) – For the first time in 33 years, visitors to the historic Glensheen mansion in Duluth are being allowed to take photographs inside.
Glensheen was built by mining mogul Chester Congdon in the early 1900s, and in 1977 was the site of one of the state’s most notorious murders.
It was bequeathed to the University of Minnesota and is one of Duluth’s most popular tourist attractions.
Interim director Dan Hartman tells the Duluth News Tribune photography had been banned because it slowed tours down and distracted visitors from the experience.
But he and his staff learned that Glensheen was one of only three similar historic houses in the Midwest that didn’t allow photography.
Guides may still reinstate the photography ban along a tour if needed to keep things on schedule.
On June 27, 1977, Elizabeth Congdon and her nurse Velma Pietila were murdered in the mansion. Her son-in-law Roger Caldwell was convicted of the murders a year later, but the verdict was overturned in 1983. He confessed to the murders and later committed suicide.
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