The Stuntz Bay Boathouse Historic District comprises a row of 143 boathouses on Lake Vermilion in Breitung Township, Minnesota, United States. They were mostly built in the first half of the 20th century by employees of the adjacent Soudan Iron Mine. The mining company provided the lots to employees as a reward for their years of service, and the miners did their own construction. Most of the boathouses were built with

tamarack ''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and als ...

logs and scrap corrugated metal from the mine property. Boating and fishing were major pastimes for the mine employees and their families in their leisure hours, and the mining company promoted access to outdoor recreation as a perk of employment. With The Stuntz Bay Boathouses were listed as a historic district on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2007 for their local significance in the themes of architecture, entertainment/recreation, industry, and social history. They were nominated for illustrating the personal lives of the miners and

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

metal architecture. The Stuntz Bay Boathouses largely remain family-owned

inholding An inholding is privately owned land inside the boundary of a national park, national forest, state park, or similar publicly owned, protected area. In-holdings result from private ownership of lands predating the designation of the park or fores ...

s within what is now Soudan Underground Mine State Park. 140 of the boathouses are considered

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

to the historic district and three recently rebuilt boathouses are non-contributing. Just inland from the boathouses, the ruins and smokestack of a compressor house built for the mine in 1884 and demolished around 1930 form another contributing property. The final three contributing properties consist of a fishing dock at the far east end of the boathouses, a

boat ramp A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...

in the middle dating to about 1940, and a large rock outcrop midway up the east side that served as a fishing spot and landmark.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Boathouses on the National Register of Historic Places Buildings and structures in St. Louis County, Minnesota Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in St. Louis County, Minnesota Vernacular architecture in Minnesota

See also

References