SPLIT ROCK LIGHTHOUSE-MINNESOTA

During the early-morning hours of November 28, 1905, the 478-foot William Edenborn was towing the 436-foot barge Madeira along the western shore of Lake Superior, in winds of seventy to eighty miles per hour, when the towline parted. The Madeira crashed onto the craggy shores of Gold Island, near present-day Split Rock Lighthouse, and nine of its crew of ten made it safely ashore. The Edenborn was driven into the mouth of Split Rock River, a few miles to the south, where she broke in two and lost one of her crewmembers. Twenty-nine vessels were destroyed or damaged and thirty-six seamen lost their lives in the storm, which was named Mataffa after a freighter that wrecked near Duluth that day. In January 1907, J.H. Sheadle, vice president of The Lake Carriers' Association, wrote the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, urging the construction of a lighthouse near Split Rock. "A lighthouse of the second order, with fog-signal attachment, to be erected on the north shore of Lake Superior, in the vicinity of Split Rock, Minnesota, preferably on Carborundum Point, lying about half a mile north of Split Rock. There is at present no light-house on the north shore of Lake Superior between Grand Marais and Two Harbors, and it is extremely difficult to locate Two Harbors in a fog or storm, owing to the uncertain variation of the compass on the north shore of Lake Superior, due to the vast metallic deposits in that vicinity, and also owing to the dangerous character of the coast all along the north shore. During the past two years there have been disasters in this vicinity amounting to over $2,000,000, the total loss of the steamer Lafayette, the barge Madeira, the steamer Spencer, and the barge Pennington, and serious damage to the steamer Edenborn, the barge Manila, the steamer George W. Peavey, and others. It is the experience and opinion of masters that this is the natural place to make a landfall in approaching the head of Lake Superior, and a good light and a good fog signal at that point would greatly enhance the safety of navigation in all weathers at the head of the lake." On March 4, 1907, $75,000 was appropriated for a light and fog signal near Split Rock. Split Rock Lighthouse was designed by Ralph Russell Tinkham, and construction of the station, atop the 130- foot cliff, started in June of 1909. Excellent progress had been made when work was suspended for the season on November 21. Work resumed on May 1, 1910, and the light was put into commission on July 31, 1910. The station consisted of an octagonal brick tower, built around a steel framework, a brick fog signal house, an oil storage building, and three two-story brick dwellings, each with a small frame barn behind it. The fifty-four-foot-tall lighthouse employed a clockwork mechanism, driven by 250-pound weights, to revolve a third-order, bi-valve Fresnel lens, manufactured in Paris by Barbier, Bénard & Turenne. The lens produced a white flash every ten seconds, at a focal plane of 168 feet above mean lake level, using a 55-millimeter double-tank incandescent oil vapor lamp. The fog signal originally consisted of duplicate six-inch sirens excited by air compressed by a twenty-two horsepower gasoline engine. The station’s oil vapor light was replaced with a 1000-watt electric light in 1940, and the station’s other buildings were wired for electricity. The fog signal was discontinued in 1961, and by January 1, 1969, the light had been decommissioned, and the station was handed over to the General Services Administration for disposal.