Minnesota's Seaport - Duluth, Minnesota - Minnesota Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Minnesota's Seaport

More than three billion tons of iron ore, along with millions of touns of grain, lumber, fish, and coal, have passed through the Duluth-Superior harbor since the beginning of Minnesota's Iron Age.  The first ore from the rich Mesabi Range left the harbor for smelters on the lower lakes in 1892, and by 1916 yearly shipments had reach nearly 38 million tons.  Huge loading docks, built first of wood, and later of steel and concrete, could load four or five ore-carrying lake freighters simultaneously from nearly 400 railroad cars.  In 1953 an all-time yearly record 64 million tons of ore was shipped.  As the rich hematite ore became scarce in the lake 1950's, methods were developed to process and ship taconite, a plentiful lower grade ore.

The mouth of the S. Louis River forms a fine natural harbor with some 49 miles of serviceable frontage protected by one of the longest freshwater bay mouth bars in the world.  The Duluth ship canal, originally a hand-dug cut through the bar, opened in 1870.  Superior, Wisconsin, is located directly opposite the only natural harbor entrance.

For much of the twentieth century this harbor was second in total tonnage only to New York among U.S. ports, even though it is open to shipping only about eight months each year.  Since the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, ocean-going vessels have carried the grain harvests of the northern plains and Montana soft coal from the Twin Ports to destinations around the globe. ~ text of marker