DULUTH, Minn. — One hundred years ago this month, Duluth hosted the National Rowing Regatta. At the time it was a big deal: the event served as the Olympic trials for American rowers, MPRNews (http://bit.ly/2bAcEC6 ) reported.

“The boat club had built this big grandstand for the national regatta in 1916 that was an eighth of a mile long. And Duluthians filled it,” said Michael Cochran, author of “Invincible,” a history of rowing at the Duluth Boat Club.

Cochran said Duluth dominated the rowing scene, winning the majority of races at national rowing championships in 1913, 1914, and 1915 — when Duluth rowers won 10 out of 11 events at that year’s national regatta. The New York Times called it “something unheard of in the history of amateur rowing.”

And that dominance continued at the 1916 regatta. At the time there was a group of Duluth rowers dubbed “The Invincible Four.” In 22 elite-level races over four years, they never lost.

But they were never able to compete for gold. The 1916 Olympics were canceled because of World War I.

So how did Duluth become a national rowing power?

Most credit Julius Barnes, a wealthy wheat exporter who bankrolled the Duluth Boat Club. He hired a famous coach, Jim Ten Eyck from Syracuse University, and paid for the rowers to travel to regattas on the East Coast.

“They would go out with trainloads of boats, said Greg Peterson, who joined the rowing club as a teenager in 1970. “After the regatta was over with, they would sell all the boats. Then he would purchase new ones for the next year.”

Peterson’s coach at the time, Henning Peterson, who’s not related to Greg, rowed during the club’s heyday and told stories about their strict training. Rowers lived at the boat house. They rowed early in the morning, went to work, then practiced some more, ate dinner, and were in bed by 10 p.m. Peterson learned they also had an incredibly strict diet, at home and on trips.

“They would take 55-gallon barrels of fresh Lake Superior water — the coaches were that particular they didn’t want them to get sick on strange water,” Peterson said.

But as quickly as the Duluth Boat Club rose to prominence, it collapsed. Barnes lost much of his fortune in the early 1920s, and by 1926, the club disbanded.

Today, there’s new energy at the club — 125 kids take part in the youth program. When it rains, they work out in a brand new boat house that opened last month.

Joe Rauzi, 18, has been coming to the rowing club at 8 a.m. every summer day for the past five years.

“It’s just a great feeling to be out on the water and be a part of a system like we are in. You get to rely so much on the people who are in the boat with you. It’s like the ultimate team sport I think,” said Rauzi.

He also works out in Duluth Harbor, in an impossibly narrow shell of four rowers sweeping the boat forward with powerful pulls on their oars.