Split Rock Lighthouse is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

located southwest of Silver Bay, Minnesota, USA on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The structure was designed by lighthouse engineer Ralph Russell Tinkham and was completed in 1910 by the United States Lighthouse Service at a cost of $75,000, including the buildings and the land. It is considered one of the most picturesque lighthouses in the United States.

History

Split Rock Lighthouse was built in response to the great loss of ships during the famous

Mataafa Storm The Mataafa Storm of 1905, was a storm that occurred on the Great Lakes on November 27–28, 1905. The system moved across the Great Basin with moderate depth on November 26 and November 27, then east-northeastward across the Great Lakes on Novemb ...

of 1905, during which 29 ships were lost or damaged on Lake Superior. One of these shipwrecks, the ''

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'', is located just north of the lighthouse. The lighthouse stands on a sheer cliff eroded by wave action from a

diabase Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-graine ...

sill Sill may refer to: * Sill (dock), a weir at the low water mark retaining water within a dock * Sill (geology), a subhorizontal sheet intrusion of molten or solidified magma * Sill (geostatistics) * Sill (river), a river in Austria * Sill plate, a ...

containing inclusions of anorthosite. The octagonal building is a steel-framed brick structure with concrete trim on a concrete foundation set into the rock of the cliff. It is topped with a large, steel lantern which features a third order, bi-valve type Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier, Bernard and Turenne Company in Paris, France. The tower was built for a second order lens, but when construction went over budget, only enough funding remained for the smaller third order lens. The lens floats on a bearing surface of liquid

mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

which allows near frictionless operation. The lens is rotated by an elaborate clockwork mechanism that is powered by weights running down the center of the tower which are then reset by cranking them back to the top. When completed, the lighthouse was lit with a kerosene oil vapor lamp. At the time of its construction, there were no roads to the area. All building materials and supplies arrived by water and were lifted to the top of the cliff by crane. The lamp was first lit on July 31, 1910. Thanks to its scenic location, the lighthouse soon became a tourist attraction for sailors and excursion boats. So much so, that in 1924 a road (now Minnesota State Highway 61) was built to allow land access. In 1940, the station was electrified and the lamp was replaced with a 1000 watt electric bulb, and the incandescent oil vapor lamp was moved to Au Sable Point Lighthouse in Northern Michigan. Split Rock was upgraded with a

fog signal A foghorn or fog signal is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of navigational hazards such as rocky coastlines, or boats of the presence of other vessels, in foggy conditions. The term is most often used in relation to marine transport. W ...

housed in a building next to the light tower. The original signal was a pair of sirens driven by two Franklin gasoline-driven air compressors manufactured by Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company. In 1932 the gasoline engines were replaced with diesel engines. The steam sirens were replaced with a Type F-2-T diaphone (be-you) type signal in 1936. The station and the fog signal were electrified four years later, but discontinued in 1961. The light was retired in 1969 by the

U. S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi ...

. The lighthouse is now part of the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park and is operated by the

Minnesota Historical Society The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehoo ...

. The site includes the original tower and lens, the fog signal building, the oil house, and the three keepers' houses. It is restored to appear as it did in the late 1920s. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. Notwithstanding its retirement, every November 10 the lighthouse emits a light in memory of the SS ''Edmund Fitzgerald'' which sank on that date in 1975. On June 30, 2011, the lighthouse was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The lighthouse keeper, Lee Radzak, worked at the lighthouse from 1982-2019, the longest tenure of any lighthouse keeper at the site.

In art

The United States Postal Service issued a stamp that featured the light on June 17, 1995. It was one of five lighthouses chosen for the "Lighthouses of the Great Lakes" series postage stamp designed by

Howard Koslow Howard Koslow (September 21, 1924 – January 25, 2016) was an American illustrator. Koslow was awarded an Art League scholarship to Pratt Institute in New York City. He graduated in 1944 and went on to apprentice with French poster artist Jean C ...

in 1995. There was one lighthouse chosen on each of the Great Lakes. The five lighthouses are Split Rock Light on Lake Superior, St Joseph Light on

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

Spectacle Reef Light Spectacle Reef Light is a lighthouse east of the Straits of Mackinac and is located at the northern end of Lake Huron, Michigan. It was designed and built by Colonel Orlando Metcalfe Poe and Major Godfrey Weitzel, and was the most expensive lig ...

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...

, Marblehead Light (Ohio) on Lake Erie and

Thirty Mile Point Light Thirty Mile Point Light is a lighthouse on the south shore of Lake Ontario in Niagara County, New York. It is part of Golden Hill State Park, a New York state park. The lighthouse is open to the public. It gets its name because it is the point 30 ...

on Lake Ontario. Because of its picturesque form and location, it has been the subject of many photographs and postcards. The lighthouse was also in the 2013 film The Great Gatsby.

Gallery

File:Interior stairs at Split Rock Lighthouse.jpg, Interior stairs in Lighthouse File:Split Rock Lighthouse evening.jpg, Distance view Image:SplitRockLighthouse AerialView.jpg, Aerial view File:Lighthouse keepers' homes.jpg, Lighthouse keepers' dwellings File:Fog Signal Building, Split Rock Lighthouse.jpg, Fog signal building File:Split Rock Lighthouse - Lake County, Minnesota - 8 Jan. 2009.jpg, Lighthouse in winter Image:Splitrockconstruction_1909.jpg, Construction, 1909 File:Split Rock Lighthouse (1986835377).jpg, Light illuminated File:3rd-order,_Fresnel_lens_at_Split_Rock.jpg, 3rd-order, Fresnel lens File:Mercury_bowl_and_float_of_Split_Rock_lens.jpg, Mercury bowl and float of Fresnel lens File:North Shore Trip - Fall 2012 - Split Rock Clockworks (8061058683).jpg, Lighthouse lens crank

Records

Original, microfilmed, and photocopied records of the lighthouse keepers, containing daily entries on station activities and upkeep; expenditures; weather; shipping conditions; visitors; and social events on Lake Superior's north shore during the shipping season are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.

References

External links