The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Duluth is set to close later this year, as the family behind the vast Karpeles collection moves to consolidate everything under one roof in Florida. Once the city-owned building is sold, the Duluth galleries will be packed up, taking with them dozens of rotating exhibits that have ranged from Revolutionary War letters to a Titanic clearance certificate. The family says the materials will be digitized and that select items could still circle back to Duluth for short-term loans supporting schools and community groups.
According to the Star Tribune, the Karpeles children are centralizing the manuscripts in St. Augustine, Florida, and the Duluth outpost will wind down once the building changes hands. Cheryl Karpeles Alleman told the paper she expects the renovated 220-year-old house in St. Augustine to draw as many as 1,000 visitors a day. The family says the move is meant to better shield the fragile collection while still keeping it widely accessible.
As reported by the Duluth News Tribune, David Karpeles, a Duluth native who later made his fortune in California real estate, pieced together what was believed to be the world’s largest private manuscript collection and opened free museums across the country. He died in January 2022, leaving his heirs to oversee the care and logistics for more than a million delicate documents. The Duluth branch, housed in a renovated 1912 church on East First Street, marked its 30th anniversary in 2024.
What's in the trove
Inside the Duluth museum, the lineup has long been a history buff’s grab bag, from handwritten letters and sheet music to early aviation sketches and small relics that put visitors practically in the room with the past. The Star Tribune reported that previous exhibits have included letters by Benjamin Franklin and King George III, a certificate tied to the Titanic, a $15.93 check signed by Thomas Edison, sketches linked to “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and a certificate related to Amelia Earhart’s solo Atlantic flight. Museum director Matthew Sjelin has said that visual pieces such as Samuel Franklin Cody’s airplane drawings help visitors, especially students, connect with history in a way that feels immediate instead of abstract.
A national pullback
Duluth is not the only city losing its Karpeles outpost. The Santa Barbara branch recently closed, with its artifacts now headed for Florida as well, Noozhawk reported. Leadership has pointed to the cost of running multiple free museums scattered around the country and says that concentrating the collection in a single, high-traffic site will make long-term conservation more sustainable. Several smaller Karpeles locations have already closed in recent years as the heirs weigh how best to steward the material for the long haul.
What this means for Duluth
The museum’s home at 902 E. First St. is listed as a local attraction on Visit Duluth, and staff say they are hoping the city’s relationship with the collection will not end with the building’s sale. The organization is working to digitize thousands of manuscripts so teachers, students, and researchers can still tap into the material even after the physical galleries go dark (Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum). Sjelin told the Duluth News Tribune he expects Duluth-focused programming to continue in the near term, even as the family shifts the manuscripts’ center of gravity to Florida.
