Duluth Sister Cities Celebrates 25 Year Anniversary

Relationship with Japanese City Started in 1990

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Duluth Sister Cities International is hosting a Japanese Delegation to the Northland this weekend.

The Japanese visitors are from Duluth’s Japanese sister city Osahura Isumi City, near Tokyo.

Ohara Isumi committee chair, Gale Kerns, says the relationship began because of a bell. 

According to Kerns, a northland serviceman, serving in World War II, brought the bell back to Duluth as a war trophy.

The bell was housed in city hall for several years, until an inscription was translated by a visitor and it was learned  the bell was from a temple in the city of Ohara Isumi.

The bell was then returned to Japan, but the temple that had previously housed it had been destroyed by the war.

The Japanese built a new tower to house the bell and now display it as a “peace bell.”

With a relationship already established because of the peace bell, the two cities became sister cities in 1990.

This weekends festivities will focus on culture and connections between the two cities. 

Festivities include dinners,traditional dances, and even a mock wedding.