DULUTH HARBOR NORTH BREAKWATER LIGHTHOUSE, DULUTH, MINNESOTA

An act of June 3, 1896, unified the harbors of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin and provided over $3 million for improvements. Part of this money was used to widen the Duluth Canal and replace the existing piers with substantial structures of timber and monolithic concrete. Work began on the north pier in April 1898. The south pier was completed in 1900 and marked the following year by a pair of range lights, while the north pier was completed in 1901 and was not lit. The piers each have a length of about 1,700 feet and project roughly 1,150 feet beyond the shoreline. The foundation cribs extend twenty-two feet below low-water, and the concrete superstructures rise to a height of ten to eighteen feet above low-water. The lake entrance, between the piers, is 300 feet wide. In 1908 the Lighthouse Board acknowledged the need to mark the north pier. “The approach to Duluth Harbor is one of the worst and most dangerous on the whole chain of lakes. The entrance piers are only 300 feet in width, and the north pier is so close to shore that a vessel making a mistake in judging the width would be immediately on the rocks. The Lake Carrier’s Association considers this a matter of such importance that it has made arrangements for the exhibition of private lights for the balance of the season of navigation in 1908. The local officers of the Eleventh district, after careful investigation, state that navigation will be very decidedly facilitated by the establishment of a light on the north pier, and the Board therefore recommends that such light be established, at a cost of $4000. Congress appropriated $4000 on March 4, 1909. A conical tower consisting of latticed steel columns covered with a 5/6” steel shell was erected on the outer end of the north pier and lit for first time on April 7, 1910. The lighthouse stands thirty-seven feet tall and tapers from ten feet six inches at its base to eight feet at the base of the octagonal lantern room. A fifth-order, Henry-Lepaute Fresnel lens was mounted on a pedestal in the lantern room, and a motor connected to the city’s electric system was used to drive a  clockwork that produced the light’s characteristic of fixed white two seconds, eclipse two seconds. In 2014, an LED beacon replaced the active Fresnel lens in the lantern room. The change reduced the range of the light from about fourteen nautical miles to ten-and-a-half nautical miles.