Minnesota's Seaport - Duluth, Minnesota
Posted by: BruceS
N 46° 43.773 W 092° 12.339
15T E 560694 N 5175417
Historical marker commemorating the development of Duluth as a seaport, located at the Minnesota Welcome Center in Duluth.
Waymark Code: WM2QWC
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 12/09/2007
Views: 84
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