About the lighthouse

Split Rock Lighthouse is a lighthouse located southwest of Silver Bay, Minnesota, USA on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The structure was designed by lighthouse engineer Ralph Russell Tinkham and was completed in 1910 by the United States Lighthouse Service at a cost of $75,000, including the buildings and the land. It is considered one of the most picturesque lighthouses in the United States.

Split Rock Lighthouse was built in response to the great loss of ships during the famous Mataafa Storm of 1905, in which 29 ships were lost on Lake Superior.[4] One of these shipwrecks, the Madeira, is located just north of the lighthouse.

It is built on a 133-foot (41 m) sheer cliff eroded by wave action from a diabase sill containing inclusions of anorthosite.[5] The octagonal building is a steel-framed brick structure with concrete trim on a concrete foundation set into the rock of the cliff.[4] It is topped with a large, steel lantern which features a third order, bi-valve type Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier, Bernard and Turenne Company in Paris, France.

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