Split Rock Lighthouse
N 47° 12.018 W 091° 22.021
15T E 623682 N 5228716
Split Rock Light is the focal point of a State Park, northeast of Duluth on Highway 61.
Waymark Code: WMNQ0
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 08/28/2006
Views: 127
Split Rock Light is unusual, being a complete 20th century light station, with a tower, keeper's house, fog signal building, and oil house all constructed in 1910. The lens is a gorgeous Third Order bivalve Fresnel that looks like a big clamshell rather than the traditional beehive look. The lens contains 242 separate prisms, and was manufactured by Barbier, Bernard, and Turenne of Paris. The park has a fine museum located a few hundred feet from the lighthouse complex which details the history of the lighthouse and its construction. Included is a video presention on the keepers life at Split Rock. Visitors can climb the lighthouse tower while the lens is rotating and observe the weight driven mechanism being rewound. The separate fog signal building and restored keepers quarters are also open to visitors. The height of this site makes for a spectacular view out over Lake Superior and along the rocky shoreline. Visitors can walk down to the water's edge along the path of the old tramway used to haul supplies from the landing area up to the lighthouse. The museum and lighthouse complex is open from late spring to late fall and the park has picnic facilites and some wonderful trails along the lakeshore. Text excerpted from (
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