the North Shore of Minnesota is home to one of Lake superiors most beautiful landmarks perched on a 130 foot cliff the Split Rock Lighthouse has served not only as a beacon of safety but a place to contemplate the majesty of this vast body of water the site has been restored to its 1920s appearance and will be celebrating its 100th anniversary the grounds contain a museum the house is where the keepers once lived the fog signal building and the tower itself maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society the site also preserves a large tract of shoreline which brings you down to the lake below here you can view the tower from the classic perspective and gaze at the barges in the distance it easily impress upon you the immense scale of the lake and how the rocky shoreline could become an unforgiving fall Fred Mackie when a new lighthouse for almost 30 years tells the tale of that fateful day in 1910 29 ships that went down in a storm on November 28th but because of that the lake carriers Association which was a group of ship captains traveling the lake hauling the iron ore petitioned the federal government for lighthouses to be built and they specifically asked for one to be built here that’s word inside you get a chance to see how ananias concrete mechanism spins and renderings anywhere else in fact sounds 19 which is how the lighthouse operated but the weight slowly descend all 25 feet in two hours so every two hours throughout the night a keeper would have to make that trip up the stairs and turn a crank roughly 150 turns to bring the weights up throughout the night for 30 years before electricity came no matter what the weather the light would be lit but for the first 30 years it was a pressurized kerosene lamp and would burn about two gallons of kerosene each night fishermen off Grand Marais said they could see the light as far away as there that’s more than 60 miles no popular scuba diving site the shipwreck Madeira sunk just within view of where the tower now stands well I’m at Madeira that night of November 28th 1905 was being used as a tow bar and it was being pulled by the Eden born down the shore and they basically got lost on the lake and the Madeira was left the flounder out here on gold rock pointless camper their way on up to the top then one was lost to the lake thirteen degrees below zero that night very difficult time for them for over 50 years to Split Rock Lighthouse help ships safely navigate the icy waters of Superior today it beckons a traveler to discover more about the past and greater appreciate the relationship between us and the ways of nature for resorts and lodges calm this has been Tony and Rhea hoping that you put the Split Rock Lighthouse on your list of top destinations you