Commissioned by the Duluth Turnverein, designed by Oliver G. Traphagen in the neo-Romanesque style, and constructed of brick at 601 East Third Street near Ashtabula Heights, the Duluth Turner Hall was opened to the public on July 15, 1888, and stood for just two years before it was destroyed by fire on February 17, 1890. It was Duluth's second Turner Hall. The first was built in 1873 on the 300 block of East Superior Street and was also destroyed by fire in 1886. In 1891, a third Turner Hall was built on the site of the second one, but the building was sold by the Turnverein in 1900 and was subsequently used as a theater, as a boys' YMCA, as a gas station, and as a motorcycle sales and service point before it was razed in the mid-1960s.