McDougall by 1910 had achieved a level of recognition within Duluth to sit on a number of boards and clubs throughout the city. Notably he was a board member of the City National Bank appearing in advertisements in the News-Tribune and testifying to the Minnesota legislature on banking matters. Though they moved in the same circles within the shipping and storage businesses, McDougall and Julius Barnes had a series of shared interactions making their later business relationship unsurprising. The Commercial Club was the principle venue, a combination of business and banking figures throughout the city coming together to serve as boosters and charitable figures for Duluth. McDougall served on the history committee and was a frequent speaker on the rapid changes since the 1890s along the waterfront. It also provided a platform for him to continue his narrative about the loss of his company to John D. Rockefeller.

From the Duluth News-Tribune, March 9, 1913:

“The funeral of Alex McDougall, Jr., 5-year-old son of Miller McDougall, 1005 East First Street, and grandson of Capt. Alex McDougall, will be held today and will be strictly private. The family requests that no flowers be sent. The child died at the city contagion hospital from the effects of septic pneumonia.”

In the years before antibiotics, pneumonia was deadly to young children, particularly from infection in one or both lungs. The McDougall’s family was not alone in this experience, and shared it with many other families throughout the United States. The family has images of Captain McDougall with his young grandson at the Brule River lodge in the snow goofing around. As there is a limited amount of intimate material, such images help to shape my own view of the relationships within the family. It was undoubtedly an awful blow to parents and grandparents as would be in the present.