Campbell & Son supplied all the labor necessary: carpenters brick masons demolition men for dynamiting the hard rock of the cliff to build foundations and laborers collected from all over the Great Lakes region. The construction of Split Rock Lighthouse was an engineering feat carried out by an organization already known for building structures in remote locations. In early 1907, Congress appropriated $75,000 for a lighthouse and fog signal in the vicinity of Split Rock. Two of these carriers foundered on the rocky coastline, in an area which some called 'the most dangerous piece of water in the world.' A delegation led by the steamship company president descended upon Washington, D.C.

One-third of them were the uninsured property of the steel company fleet. United States Steel's bulk ore carriers became 'the greatest exclusive freight-carrying fleet sailing under one ownership in the world.' The demand for a new lighthouse on the lake's inhospitable North Shore was hardly surprising.Ī single storm on Novemdamaged twenty-nine ships. In the early years of the twentieth century, iron ore shipments on Lake Superior doubled and redoubled. By 1940, its picturesque North Shore setting had made it one of the most visited lighthouses in the United States.

Split Rock Lighthouse opened in the summer of 1910 to guide bulk ore ships sailing near Lake Superior's rocky coast.

Tarkov lighthouse keeper