Ready?
We're actually rolling right now.
Oh, hi everyone.
I'm Emily.
And I'm Vince.
And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown.
Well, welcome everybody to episode 44.
Heck yeah.
I forget how many episodes that is.
44 is a ton.
We're coming up on the old 5-0.
I remember when I started, I was like, I want to get to 15 episodes.
That's my goal.
I want to get to 15 before I quit this hobby.
And we're at 44.
Here we are, 44.
Along with all these people.
Yeah.
What made me realize how many episodes it was is that, so everyone knows, we have a
new feature on our website where it's a Google map where you can see which lighthouses we've
covered so you can like look through the world and we have little pins where we've covered
lighthouses.
And then if you click on a pin, it comes up with a link that you can use to follow to
Google so that you can see like reviews and their website and all that cool stuff.
That's awesome.
I'm glad it also runs through Google because I feel like they're my favorite for the moment.
Yeah.
They got it going on.
They got the most going on.
But I can't figure out how to make the map fill the whole screen on a computer.
So it's just like this little screen.
Like a window.
Like a little window in the middle of the big screen.
I don't know how to fix that.
I'm not very tech savvy.
Well, I was supposed to do this maybe six plus months ago.
That was my job to do.
Yeah.
You sent me a link like the beginning of it and there was only three on there.
Yeah.
Because it was, yeah.
Yep.
And so Emily did it.
It was labor intensive.
Thank you, Emily.
Because you can't directly embed Google Maps into your website.
You have to do it like a roundabout way with Google custom maps or something like that.
So anyway, that's on our website.
You guys should check it out.
It's pretty cool.
Just kind of fun to click around and see where we've covered.
I don't think we're really heavy on any location yet.
Which is great.
It's not like we have a ton in California or a ton in Maine or anything.
It's just kind of spread out.
They are mostly on the coast.
Yeah.
Good one.
In Michigan area.
Yeah.
We did do a lot of Michigan.
But we like those people.
So I'm going to jump into the history.
My first history buoy of the year.
Wow.
First history buoy and actually I think a while I've failed spectacularly.
You did invent the history buoy.
So yeah, if I wanted to, we could just stop doing it all together.
I think we should stick with it.
So what is it today?
It's day marks.
So we're going to talk about day marks.
Nice.
What is that?
So technically all lighthouses are day marks, but not all day marks are lighthouses.
That's kind of the vibe I'm going with here.
That's the energy.
Yeah.
The energy you're bringing to 2024.
So a day mark is basically just a constant identifiable structure that is like used as
an age navigation.
So they have like most day marks are not lit day marks.
It's just like during the day.
If you see this, they just covered a bunch of them on the United States.
This lighthouse service podcast, lighthearted.
Yeah, they didn't cover a bunch of them, but they talked to a guy who's that's his specialty.
So a lot of day beacon stuff.
He's like a historian specialist or like, I don't know, I didn't listen to it.
So day marks, I might be interrupting you.
Yeah, you are.
Go ahead.
Day marks are sorry, they can't did something.
The paint that's on a lighthouse, right?
Like this, like the pattern or is it more to it?
No, it's about it.
And moving on.
I'm just kidding.
Well, so what I wanted to ask the way that you'd worded it was that day marks are things
you can see that aren't necessarily lit.
Yeah.
And so a lighthouse, the tower itself is a day mark, but not all day marks are lighthouses.
So what what other items can be used as day marks?
Is this for all like nautical navigation or?
Yeah, yeah.
Day marks are just especially nautical navigation will just be like I mentioned, it's like a
non lit structure of some kind that you use to pinpoint where you're going.
Like I don't have a bunch of examples of those because we're talking about lighthouses.
Like I'm just trying to talk about lighthouses.
You're throwing me off my game.
I'm sorry.
OK, so the effectiveness of a day mark varies depending on like color and stuff and lighthouses
because they're more for nighttime navigation, their day beacon or their day day mark may
not be as like.
Impactful you know.
Yeah, like they're not always going to be a bright otherwise we'd have like neon pink
lighthouses or something.
But in this case, a lighthouse's day mark is its pattern or color.
So the United States uses solid colors, single bands, two to eight stripes and spiral bands
as well as diamonds and just like plain brick.
Two to eight stripes.
I swear I've seen.
Oh, I'm stupid.
I was going to say some one strippers.
Yeah, but inherently if you put a stripe, then there's another stripe at least.
I am talking.
I said single band and then two to eight stripes and the eight stripes.
If you put nine, I swear to goodness, I'm coming down there and what are you talking
about getting rid of one of those stripes?
Why eight is a maximum.
The eight is actually West Quarry Lighthouse, which we covered the where's Waldo Lighthouse.
Yes, exactly.
Very nice.
And you said lighthouses anymore stripe here.
It would be couldn't be any more.
I do wonder because West Quarry Lighthouse is not that tall.
So I wonder what the thickness we could do the math on those bands is.
Oh, I said it in my episode how thick the bands were.
I can't remember.
It was like three feet.
It was thicker than I thought.
I don't think it was three feet.
It was it was like in pictures.
You're like, oh, it's just like, you know, a couple inches.
Yeah.
But so our new I'm sorry, caffeine is just common for me.
You were like this before you start drinking coffee.
Sure.
Our new logo.
Yes.
Would you say lighthouse in the shape of an L for use?
Use who haven't seen?
Yes, it's the lighthouse is an L and then there's another L. So it's the LL.
I like that a lot.
Thank you.
Literally.
I see our day mark is well, how would you describe it?
What would you call that?
That's diamond with diamond.
What colors?
Blue.
I thought maybe you had like a special name for it.
That's lighthouse lowdown blue events.
Come on.
It is with lighthouse lowdown black next to it.
Or is that Navy?
That's Navy L. So it is blue.
It's two blues.
All right.
Sorry, folks.
Getting distracted.
What is our flash pattern?
How could you ask me that question?
I haven't thought about it.
We don't even know yet.
I'm definitely going to say that we have a red beacon.
Oh, because those are our favorites.
Alternating red and white.
That'd be cool.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Yeah, that's an emergency.
It's an emergency.
Everyone listen.
We're not talking about the light.
Okay, we're talking about day mark.
All right.
Do houses ever have day marks?
Like lighthouses, of course, but the house for the light, like the keepers, quarters,
quarters.
Yes, actually.
Sometimes the keepers cottage is what distinguishes it from other lighthouses.
Like whenever they have a red tin roof, that's usually it's like that.
Yeah.
So usually day marks need to stand out really well against their backgrounds, which is usually
sky, cliff or rocks.
Sometimes trees like quad.
Yeah, true.
Trees.
It's good point.
But also it would be more it would be sky because you'd be looking at it from below
and so that would explain trees.
That would explain why blue is not seen on my house as well as I actually wrote that
forest green.
Oh, no, I didn't write that.
But I was going to point out that that's I said this in a past episode, but that's why
I made our our logo blue.
Oh, cool.
It's not something you would see in an actual.
I do remember that.
I really like it, though.
I should we should make one in the front yard.
I'll leave you to that.
So I'm thinking of Okra, Coke is big, fat white lighthouse.
I think of our trip to the Outer Banks last September, two September ago, two September.
Oh, my goodness.
The diamond pattern, which is Cape Hatteras.
No, no, Cape Lookout.
Well, we didn't get to Cape Lookout.
That's right.
Hatteras was the spiral famous spiral, the barbershop spiral.
OK.
And those are also interesting.
We covered this before, but remind me, those are also interesting because they need to
differentiate from one another.
And it's a really lighthouse heavy area.
True for all lighthouses.
And I'm going to point out something here in a second.
You would just quit talking.
I'll just relax.
So my next point was that lighthouses need to differ from the ones around them in some
recognizable way, like adding a red roof to Keepers Cottage or something.
You took my only example.
That's exactly what I was going to say.
I know you coming in here.
Do you want to do it?
No, I just love being here.
Can't be mad at you for that.
So so an example I was going to use was Mackinac, which was the episode our last episode, episode
43, you did old Mackinac Point Lighthouse and McGulpin Point Lighthouses are only a couple
miles away from each other, which is really unusual for lighthouses that serve the same
purpose.
They do the same thing.
They're like, here's the narrowest points like from here, it's going to open up.
So they have to be identified from each other so that you know whether or not you're looking
at Mackinac or McGulpin.
But it's an interesting point that they look extremely similar.
Aside from McGulpin has like a little skinny red band just underneath the lantern room
on the lighthouse.
And other than that, they're the same in every way.
So it's like very little differentiation between the two.
But there's still a way to tell them apart.
And it's not as important to figure out which one's which because they're so close together
and they're the terrain doesn't change between them.
They're not serving any other purpose than like whenever you look at Cape Hatteras and
Body Island, you can't mix the two of them up like you cannot because Cape Hatteras is
warning of Diamond Shoals, which is the graveyard of the Atlantic.
And Body Island is like, hey, there's an inlet.
Come on in here.
Like you can't mix those two up.
That's why they're so like things.
One is intended to pull you in one's intended to stay away.
Lighthouses that serve different purposes really have to be different visually from
each other at night and during the day, which is why their day marks are so different.
But then you have a lighthouse is right next to each other and it's like they don't have
to be that different.
Yeah, they usually are.
But that's so interesting.
Like I think most people who are like lighthouse tourism, something that keeps coming up on
my mind, we're talking about a trip.
But most people who are I guess almost everyone who's involved with lighthouses are casual
observers.
So they're going to go see one.
It's like we have neighbors here that has they have a lighthouse stained glass in their
window and we asked them about it and they said, oh, yeah, we went to see one lighthouse
as kids with our family and that was the one.
And I said, is it Cape Hatteras?
Because it's the spiral pattern.
And they said, oh, I'm not sure where's that at?
And you know, we're the people to ask among other people.
But most common people who are traveling and seeing a lighthouse, I think they see a pattern.
And if it's something like Cape Hatteras, it's really memorable and they may not think
about why it's that way.
So I don't think most people know this history, Bowie.
I think that's interesting.
Most people who know lighthouses would know the general idea.
But they don't just we've been talking about this for what, a year and a half?
The U.S. I think most of our lighthouses are white.
I think that's probably true everywhere.
Most lighthouses are just white and that's fine.
But it's always fun when there's some color introduced.
Like Cape Lookout is a favorite for most people because of the diamond pattern.
And there's another lighthouse that has diamonds, same color and everything.
Diamond Lady or something like that.
I know.
I don't know if we talked about it, but I've seen it.
I've looked into it at some point.
I'm going to look it up really fast.
It's not I want to say it's not as grand, but it looks very similar to Lookout.
Diamond Lady is Cape Lookout.
Oh, it's the Diamond Lady.
Yeah, that's so funny.
I'm like, we should know these things.
Well, no, this is that's how this is how we learn.
Well, is there another would you would you search that share?
I mean, I'm sure there's another one that shares.
There's the lighthouse lowdown.
They share a diamond pattern.
This may be the only lighthouse with diamonds.
Well, if anybody knows of any other lighthouses that have diamonds, let us know.
Because we love them.
Cape Lookout.
Is that the one I think we're talking to someone at Ochre Coke, like one of the guides.
Yeah.
And he was telling us about laying down like beside Cape Lookout.
Did I tell you that?
Were you there?
But I can't remember what he was saying.
Maybe we talked about it later and I recalled it later or something.
But he was saying like, you can lay down and it's the one he took pictures of after it
had flooded and it was like reflected in the water.
Yeah.
Awesome photos.
Very cool.
Yeah.
But I don't have the complete story.
That's also North Carolina.
That's I think is that technically Outer Banks and Outer Banks?
Yeah, they're all of them.
Yeah.
And there's the whole Kitty Hawk all the way down to Hatteras, Ochre Coke and Kitty Hawk.
Hang on.
Kuretuck is all the way up there.
Kuretuck Beach.
Kuretuck is the top, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
The top.
You know, up there.
Up at the top of the map.
Yeah.
That's my history.
Good history, Bowie.
The episode that we're doing today is over Split Rock Lighthouse.
And there was actually two, one in Minnesota and one in New York.
But the one that we're talking about today is Minnesota.
I just came from Minnesota.
Cool.
We're in Minnesota.
I flew into Minneapolis St. Paul Airport.
Okay.
And then I drove to Rochester.
Where is that?
Rochester was, it's inland.
Okay.
It was southeast.
I'm pretty sure.
Yeah.
Southeast of Minneapolis St. Paul area.
So I don't, I don't know Minnesota, but yeah, I had some good food there.
So anyway.
Sorry.
I derailed it, but it's on the north shore of Lake Superior and pretty far west on the
lake.
So for those of you who aren't here, she is pointing and gesturing with her hands.
Yeah.
And for me, like to you, it's going to be on the opposite side of like motioning, you
know, up there, you know, up in there.
Give me a second.
I'm opening my maps.
We won't have it on screen, but everyone else will already know.
You're the ones who are learning like north of Minneapolis.
You go up to Duluth, which is on the coast of Lake Superior.
And then way up the far side is Thunder Bay, which is Canadian side.
Cool.
I'm talking about going on a motorcycle ride up there.
Oh, no way.
So I mentioned you might want to go along to see the lighthouses.
I can't ride a motorcycle yet.
I don't want to.
What else do you have to say?
You could follow us in a car.
You can carry all the stuff.
I'll be in a moped.
The medical supplies.
It's a day behind you.
So there's I'm getting distracted with my map.
Oh, yeah.
So get out of there.
Really cool.
So split rock.
Normally when you hear rock like Eldred Rock or standard rock, they're always like on an
island or a crib or something like in the middle of some body of water.
But for split rock, we're talking about a cliffside.
So that's kind of fun.
Oh, cool.
Oh, my gosh.
I already saw this photo on accident and I forgot about it.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
And the lighthouse itself is not super short.
I'm pretty sure it's 50 something feet tall.
Oh, my gosh.
And so heck of a cliff.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
There's people standing there.
Yeah.
So like it seems like this cliff like isn't that tall, but man is tall.
It's a big cliff and it's right on the edge.
Beautiful stone to you.
Yeah.
Super fun.
November 28th.
I usually don't show the lighthouse right off the bat, but I wanted you I wanted to
show you the cliff.
Big splash.
Someone actually did a stained glass piece of this and it was one of my favorites.
I remember taking a screenshot of it and being like, oh, this is like the goal.
But I couldn't find it.
So yeah, I can see that really, really pretty because your glass could have texture that
would reflect the rock face and colors.
That'd be awesome.
For those of you who don't know, Emily does stained glass work.
Yes.
Blue glass works.
Is it a website?
No, but it's on Etsy and Instagram.
So check it out.
Check me out.
But I also got to say, because I'm cracked up on caffeine, that little Karen right there
makes me very happy.
Karen.
That's what they're called.
Are you sure?
I was referring.
Karen's are in nature.
They used to occur and maybe it's called something different, but usually they're used on like
hiking trails to mark.
Markers.
Like there was one point I got to go on a, I'm sorry, I'm derailing you got to go on
a backpacking trip in Alaska.
And we wrote about it to myself that we went through every terrain, mud, sand, forest.
And one of them was rock.
We were literally on top of solid rock for like a mile.
And so there's no trail.
There's Warren trail everywhere else.
But we don't know where to go on this rock except for stacked Karen's that were marked.
You like follow those and then you'll, you know, cause the earth would wear away.
Yeah.
Hikers, but not the rock.
So that's cool.
Anyways, very cool picture.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
A gift Vincent approved.
Remember 28th, 1905, a huge storm hit this area, destroying or damaging 29 vessels and
killing 36 people.
Oh my God.
What a change.
Starting it off.
All right.
The storm was named Matafa.
I think in honor of a steam ship that wrecked during the storm and actually read the story
about it.
Cause I was kind of interested in it split into outside Duluth Harbor.
Like they realized that the storm was getting really bad and they weren't going to make
it.
So they turned around and were almost into the Harbor.
And then there was like, I think what they said is there was this flood of water out
of the Harbor.
Like maybe the storm was like pushing water back and forth like this big anyway.
And so it hit the nose of the ship and pushed it down into the lake.
And then the ship was almost vertical.
It's like the Titanic.
Yeah.
And broke that way.
Nine crew members died from there because they were in the second half that didn't like
one side.
They eventually both sunk, but one side sunk faster than the other one.
What year?
I'm sorry.
1905.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a rough couple of years.
Now the guys had to be chopped out of solid ice the next morning to recover his body.
That's Lake Superior for you.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying.
Like if you think about the impact of these storms, it's not just like, Oh, it's, it's
windy and wavy.
It's like, we're talking about solid ice in one day.
So after this, the vice president of the Lake Carriers Association wrote asking for a lighthouse
near Split Rock and Lake Carriers Association represent the U S flag, Great Lakes fleet
since 1880.
And these people move 90 million tons of cargo, like through the Great Lakes every year.
Awesome.
So, so obviously very important guy, high standing and needs to be happy.
So he said, quote, there is at present no lighthouse on the North shore of Lake Superior
between Grand Moray and two harbors.
And it is extremely difficult to locate two harbors in a fog or storm owing to the uncertain
variation of the compass on the North shore of Lake Superior due to the vast metallic
deposits in that vicinity.
And also owing to the dangerous character of the coast all along the North shore.
During the past two years, there have been disasters in this vicinity amounting to over
$2 million.
End quote.
And that was in 1900.
Yeah.
Early 1900s.
So what he's talking about is there's, it's the reason why there's so much business booming
on Lake Superior is because it had so many ore deposits or like iron ore.
Those deposits messed up compasses.
Like they would, they would stop pointing North.
And so he's saying they need a lighthouse because of the dangers.
That's really interesting.
We talked about that before.
I think when we talked to Fred Stonehouse, because he's a, for those of you who don't
know, he's a Great Lakes lighthouse expert, absolute expert.
Yeah.
But I think I missed why that was important.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
This guy, they want him to be happy.
So only two months after this letter Congress set aside $75,000 to build a lighthouse.
And in 1905, that was $2.5 million over $2.5 million for a lighthouse.
Just wild.
Has a nice poker room, pool table.
Yeah.
Cigar.
Underground theater room.
Lighthouse was designed by Ralph Russell Tinkham and construction started in 1909 and they
chose Split Rock for its location.
Only the area was called Stony Point and it's 130 feet tall.
Nice.
Why did they change the name?
I think when the people who came here for the first time, what are they called?
It's not like settlers.
It's Native American.
No, like English people.
I can't remember.
Brits.
No.
When they came here, they called it Split Rock.
And I'm wondering if like from the front or something, it looks broken.
I don't know.
I haven't been able to find.
Rock feature.
Yeah.
Like shaped like a wedge, you think?
I was thinking there's a big feature like, see that small, smaller segment on the right.
Maybe there's a big groove between.
Yeah.
From where it has split off.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I've never seen it from an angle that's like straight on from the lake.
It's always from the side because this is where people can actually take pictures.
So yeah, and it's a cool photo.
It's a great spot.
Yeah.
And at the time Split Rock was the highest lighthouse to be built in the U S with a focal
plane of 168 feet, which it's funny because Cape Hatteras, like even this being as tall
as it is, like so high up on this cliff side, Cape Hatteras still has 30 feet on them when
it comes to the focal plane and Cape Hatteras is like eight feet above sea level on the
ground.
Isn't that crazy?
That is a big lighthouse.
So especially when you're comparing to the height of this, like on a cliff with people
with like by comparison and then a lighthouse on top of that.
And it's like, oh yeah, Cape Hatteras is still 30, got 30 feet on that.
People using people as a scale, assuming they're six feet tall and they're also in front of
the lighthouse.
So the first perspective is that I guess not for the perspective is that they're actually
larger in scale to the lighthouse.
Yeah.
That's a big reality.
That's a big cliff.
It's pretty wild.
And Hatteras is a really big lighthouse.
Yeah.
So crazy.
So Split Rock was put into service July 31st, 1910.
So this is pretty late lighthouse.
Like most of our lighthouses we see early 1800s or like mid 1800s.
So this one's pretty late.
It's a 7.6 acre station.
It's a 54 foot tower octagonal made from brick around steel framework.
And I have a picture for that.
So old photo of them working on constructing the lighthouse.
That dude is gutsy.
I'm saying OSHA would get goosebumps.
OSHA was not in the chat.
This guy's just standing on top of the steel.
I mean, that's like 40 feet above the ground.
He would die.
Absolutely die.
Yeah.
You know what's worse than dying is surviving the fall.
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure he'd hit that steel on the way down.
Even the scaffolding over here looks pretty precarious.
It looks like what you'd see in an old abandoned mine.
Oh my gosh.
Cool photo.
It had a third order by valve Fresnel lens, which flashed for 0.5 seconds every 9.5 seconds.
So it's pretty fast.
The tower was actually built to house a second order lens.
But when they were nearing completion, the budget only allowed for a third order lens.
So they had to change plan there.
It's run by clockwork mechanism.
It's had a 250 pound weight that went down the middle of the tower and then have to be
rewound up at the top.
Nice.
That's cool.
There was also an oil storage building and a fog signal house.
And the fog signal house was originally two six inch sirens run by air compressed by a
22 horsepower gasoline engine.
So is that the oil storage room you think that's shown there?
I'm thinking that's housing for construction people or like a storage.
They usually build something just for the construction site.
And because another interesting thing is there were no roads going to this lighthouse at
this time.
So everything, literally all of the construction materials were brought by water and then hauled
up the side of the cliff.
That's so cool.
Yeah, that's very lighthouse of them.
And that actually was true for a long time after this.
It took a while for them to actually get like roads over here.
Gangster.
Yeah.
So they also built three two story keepers dwellings, each that had a tiny barn behind
it and the dwellings were lined up like each facing out to the lake.
It's really cute.
Picture that it's so just picturesque and rock.
Boom.
There's your split.
Why?
Why would they build a building right on top of it?
Well, I don't think it's broken as much as it just appears.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know.
We can talk to a structural or civil engineer, but like it appears to be a weak spot.
It does.
I mean, they're really on the edge.
That bitch is right on the edge of that.
I mean, there's got to be maybe one foot of space between the fence and the cliff and
the fence in the house.
It's here's the deal.
It's not eroding because at least quickly.
Yeah.
Because it's solid rock.
It's not dirt.
And so it's probably looked like this longer than there's been people there.
That's true.
But it is kind of unnerving.
That looks like a I'm going to make assumptions.
So those are man doors on the houses.
So they're three foot wide.
So maybe a six to nine foot wide portion of rock that's either worn away due to water
or split somehow.
That's crazy.
You imagine that would be a pretty nice view looking out that window, though.
Yeah, it would.
Look at all the woods.
That's beautiful.
Goes on forever.
You can see why there wasn't a road here for a while.
Oh, yeah.
So anyway, I think it's really cute station.
Oh, it's all the all these buildings are part of the keepers dwellings and then a barn behind
there.
So each one has its own barn.
You had chickens and stuff.
I don't know.
I bet you they did.
I didn't read anything about livestock.
That's what living out there.
Livestock order.
They're not going to get resupplied very often.
Cool.
Everyone has their own barn to take care of.
Yeah, they can compare quality and cleanliness with one another.
And at this point, everything they got was by like a derrick and hoisting mechanism,
like so they would pull things up from the side of the cliff.
And so, yeah, they probably didn't get supplies very often.
It'd be hard work going anywhere.
I think Beaver Bay is where they went for supplies for a long time.
It's like if you keep following the North Shore north.
Yeah, that's where it'd be.
Nowadays, there's a highway that runs by this lighthouse.
It's sixty one highway sixty one or also called Voyager's Lighthouse Voyager's Highway.
And Voyager's is a national park in Minnesota.
So I think it's like one hundred fifty miles of highway.
It goes all the way up to the Canada border.
This motorcycle trip we're talking about goes Thunder Bay's like this this guy who told
me about the ride.
That's his favorite spot, I guess.
His favorite segment of views and whatnot on the Canadian side.
But the highways go all the way around Lake Superior.
Oh, really?
So I mean, you cross the bridge at Mackinac.
Thank you.
And you go all the way down to our friends in Michigan, all the way around here, all
the way up north to Thunder Bay.
It's all continuous, beautiful, supposedly beautiful.
Lots of lighthouses.
That's lots of lighthouses.
You guys wouldn't want me along because I'd be stopping you every.
Yeah, as long as there is this guy's name is Mirrick.
And as long as there's espresso somewhere near the lighthouses, he would be thrilled.
He can't have that much espresso.
Oh, he can't.
There's another name for this highway.
There's three different names.
There's another one.
I think I wrote it later on, so I'll get to it.
But the first head keeper of Split Rock was Oren Young, and he had two assistants, Edward
Sexton and Roy Gill.
And unfortunately, both of the assistants died within two months of the station opening
because they overturned in their boat.
Suspect.
Oh, they died together?
Damn.
Yeah.
And from the sound of it, they never found their bodies.
So it's like assumed dead.
Lake Superior got him.
I know, just ate him right up.
That sucks.
It's always awful.
Especially assistant keepers.
It would be a terrible way to die.
Yeah, they were going to Beaver Bay and they found their overturned boat like the next
day.
How far is it away?
Like motorized boat or rowboat?
No.
Well, maybe.
I don't know.
I mean, probably in the 1900s.
Apparently the waves can turn in a second, so you kind of can't predict.
They had to replace the assistant keepers really quickly.
I think there was no notes written on them.
So yeah, you got to wonder why there's two job openings.
Yeah.
It's like, why would it happen?
In 1916, a tramway was built so they could finally stop hauling stuff up the side of
the light, the side of the cliff.
And I have a photo of it.
Okay.
I'm all over the place.
A gasoline engine pulled a cart up like this track from like a boat and landing dock platform
area up close to the lighthouse.
And then they would unhook the cart and push it the rest of the way to the lighthouse.
But I'm pretty sure it was only like five minutes away.
Oh my gosh.
Isn't that crazy?
This is so cool.
This photo, if you're listening, shows like a super steep incline.
Yeah.
I don't even know how far.
How far it is, did it say?
A ways.
A was.
Man, if anything ever cut loose on there, if your rope ever broke for some time.
It would just smash into this little boat house.
It should be gone to the superior.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Pretty neat.
We had a similar, I didn't get a good photo like this, but Triangle Lighthouse.
Yeah.
Had Triangle Island Lighthouse up northwest, west of Canada.
Had a similar description of how they hauled their materials up.
Yeah.
And it was like, I want to say it was half a mile.
It was really far from the low point where the water was to the very extreme high point
of that island where the lighthouse was.
Flan and Isle had one too.
It did.
So it's not the first time, but really interesting.
We talked about it a couple times I think.
Oh, the mystery.
That's right.
So Keeper Young resigned in 1928 and handed it off to his first assistant, Franklin Cavell,
who had served a total of seven years there as an assistant, like in an assistant position.
And originally I saw that he, so the seven years was like split up over a couple of different
stints.
And originally I saw he worked at Split Rock as second assistant, moved to 14 mile point
as first assistant, and then moved again to two harbors and was demoted to second assistant.
And I was like, oh.
It's a tumultuous career.
Yeah.
My first thought was just like, oh, I couldn't handle first assistant duties.
And then I read more up, they had a Keeper bio on their Facebook.
Minnesota Historical Society has ownership of this lighthouse now.
And they did a Keeper bio for this guy.
And the reason was that his daughter Marjorie had tuberculosis.
And so he took any job he could get at a lighthouse closer to where she was in the hospital.
I was like, bro, I just automatically assumed he was stinking at his job and he was doing
it for his child.
Yeah, that sucks.
It stinks.
He had seven children with his wife, Edith, three of which sadly died, including Marjorie.
Do you know how old she was?
She's pretty young, I think, toddler stage.
That sucks.
The other two were sudden infant death syndrome.
He retired from service in 1944.
So he worked at the lighthouse for like a solid, well, he worked around seven years
in the beginning and then worked consistent like 15 years after that as headkeeper.
And he moved closer to family after that because Edith had Parkinson's disease.
They have lots of writings about this time at Split Rock from his children because he
raised all of his kids.
Well, not all of them, but he raised a lot of his kids on Split Rock.
And they have like really nice things to say, one, about the station, even though it was
like in the winter, it was very unforgiving.
You know, the stories are so fun.
When they talk about you can like get seawater all the way up to the top of the cliff like,
oh my gosh.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
So they have some crazy stories, but mostly about their dad.
They said that he was very fair and never made the assistance do anything he wouldn't
do.
And he would often ski to the bus stop with his daughter.
First of all, ski to the bus stop.
That's so baller.
I like this is Minnesota for you.
I wonder if it was flat land.
Must've been cross country ski.
Yeah.
And the bus stop, where would they pick her up?
Yeah.
Let me just get on the bus with my skis.
Yeah.
Probably had to go quite a ways, but she would do that with her so that he can make sure
that she made it safely.
And then he would also hunt and trap wildlife like during the winter to provide food for
his family.
So it's kind of crazy.
That's awesome.
Sounds like a cool dude.
I know.
And then the keepers left the station in December and returned in May, which his kids wrote
they had like a big problem with it because they had to switch schools like twice a year.
Oh yeah.
It wasn't until 1931 that they were allowed to stay all year long.
So this was like during his watch that they got to stay all year instead of having to
clear out in December.
So that was nice.
So there was settlement nearby to have kids go to school.
Yeah.
I want to say two harbors was like a 20 minute drive or something from here.
Yeah.
26 minutes to harbors 26 minutes away and two harbors is one that they have a lighthouse
over there and it's one of the ones that were what that was in.
What's it called?
For a skump.
No, no, no.
There's only one.
That's hilarious.
The United States Lighthouse Service auction.
Oh, so you can stay at it and it looks very nice.
It's actually the basis of why I was going to pitch to harbors for one of our trips.
Oh, but now I'm questioning it because I put all this research into Cape Cod and it's like
everything I want in a vacation.
So now I'm like, you just want to be done.
Yeah.
But I'm also now I have high expectations and I'm like, if I can't visit 15 lighthouses,
then I wouldn't want to go there.
Well, I'm okay with just one as long as it's a no, I'm vetoing any trip that you said
just we just hit one lighthouse.
I have zero stamps in my passport.
Oh my gosh.
Lighthouse.
Let's table this discussion for an upcoming episode.
Well, keep that in mind on lighthouse tourism.
You sounded like hosted by Vince Bailey.
You're going to host the tourism.
Yeah, it's going to be talking just as much as that's great.
It's going to be a good episode.
We might do a late night episode on that one late night like drinks.
Yeah, like wine instead of coffee.
Oh, I don't really like wine.
Long Island's instead of coffee.
Oh, very nautical of us.
I would be down for that.
So I've derailed the moment.
I saw the other name for the highway is Lake Superior International Highway.
So there's that that was completed in 1924 and started bringing lots of visitors to the
lighthouse.
Putting up another photo in 1935.
Keeper Cavell received these instructions from the service.
Quote, this is a show station in the lighthouse service and visitors should be encouraged
to visit the lighthouse and see the lens and other mechanism as at stated periods, which
are indicated on the sign placed at the entrance of the station.
The office recognizes that the public is not always considerate, but many of the visiting
public are thoughtful of the rights of the keepers and these should not be penalized
for their earnest efforts to see the light stations when on tourist trips or otherwise,
unquote.
It kind of makes me realize how we take for granted that we can see lighthouses, like
we can go have access.
Yeah, that's a museum and you pay and you can climb it and think about how annoying
this was for the keepers.
Like they're not just at work and people are showing up there at their home.
Their whole family is there, all their kids.
There's I mean, moms give birth in the keepers cottage.
It's so crazy.
I know and then people are just like showing up like I want to see it.
It's like get out of here.
And like in what started that where people just started showing up uninvited being like
we were tourists.
We just want to see it.
Yeah.
Nowadays, it's totally normal.
Like you're not interrupting anybody's life by showing up at the lighthouse and you pay.
Do you remember recently we talked about the ladies, the the mayor's party that came to
go visit the lighthouse.
And it was like an event, like they took pictures sitting on the cannon and we're here observing.
Now we can, you know, like we did, we booked an entire trip to go see the outer banks and
series of lighthouses.
And you're right.
There's like especially was the one in Florida.
My memory is awful.
We talked about there's part of the Smithsonian Museum Society.
St. Augustine.
Yes.
Thank you.
St. Augustine, Florida.
And you can see so many events they've got.
You gotta check it out.
It's really cool.
But also the website, like to have access to the information, including what we're doing
now and photos and it's really cool, especially because, you know, like you're right at one
time it was someone's house.
Yeah, exactly.
And they're being inspected like white glove inspect.
Yeah.
So they have to walk in your walking through, but you held the highest standards.
You don't want people messing it up.
But anyway, so he got told by the lighthouse service that he was like, they're like, be
nice to these people.
We want people to see our lighthouses and be excited and learn about them.
So yeah, you just had to make that sacrifice for all the people.
And in 1938, almost 28,000 people signed the station's log as like coming and showing up.
That's cool.
Which is a lot for 1938.
It's pretty solid.
A year later, they added a third assistant position to just to assist with all the visitors.
Because you could think about how that would add so much to your job having to entertain
people who come like you're doing a job.
You're not you're never sitting down just like hanging out.
Sure, I'll show you around.
It's like elbowing people out of the way.
Yeah, I gotta refill the oil.
Yeah I wonder what that role looked like.
Like I think about my grandpa and my dad.
My dad would talk about traveling.
They lived on the west coast to go camping or whatever.
Yeah, they'd bring multiple fan belts for the engine for the car, because they would
pretty much be guaranteed to break a fan belt just as part of a road trip.
And they would change tires all the time.
And like to show up at someone's house around dinner time or lunchtime or breakfast, any
meal time was like extremely inappropriate.
It was like a big foot paw.
So now take that same mindset and apply it to tourism in general, like you're gonna show
up to the lighthouse and see if they're open on the front sign after driving how far and
like are there tours every half of an hour?
No.
Is there like a movie playing?
No, like this like you said this third keeper assistant they'd have to be tough.
That was their whole thing was now being like a tour guide for visitors.
So cool.
A year after that in 1940, the station was electrified.
And by the first of the year in 1969, the station was decommissioned and deserted.
So it's sad.
Yeah, it's sad untouched for like two years before it was transferred to the state of
Minnesota.
And then a few years after that since 1976, the Minnesota Historical Society has been
restoring it to its 1920s era.
And that's the picture that I have pulled up right now is that updated lighthouse, they
take really good care of it and they get tons and tons of visitors each year.
So it kind of pays off I think, or at least pays for itself.
I've seen limestone.
I think it's limestone like the base before.
I don't know if I've seen that pale brick.
What do we call it?
We call it something before buff buff.
It's a buff color.
I don't know if I've seen it on these type of on all three buildings that are shown.
Yeah, light peachy color.
I think this lighthouse is the most popular historical site in Minnesota.
It has like 116,000 visitors every year.
Wow, really cool.
Glad someone's taking care of it.
Yeah, it still has the original fresnel lens in the lantern room.
So you can go up and actually see it and it has like all the clockwork weight still connected
so you can see how it works.
It only runs once a year on November 10th and that's for the Edmund Fitzgerald beacon
lighting ceremony.
And the Edmund Fitzgerald was a freighter.
It was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald which sunk outside the current side of the lighthouse
before it was built during that storm, the Matafa.
Do you know the famous song?
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, if you did not, we'd have to.
We could play it.
There's a short little section, right?
Yeah.
It just, it commemorates that ship and all the others that sunk during that storm.
So November 10th, they do a moment of silence in which all the names of the crew members
are read to a ship's toll and they call that the muster of the last watch.
And then after the final toll, the lighthouse is lit and visitors are welcome to climb and
see the light up close.
You can like go into the lantern room as the light is on.
November 10th?
Wouldn't it be a real rough time of year?
It would be quite chilly.
That makes sense why the ship sank.
Yeah.
True.
Cool.
Yeah.
So is, I'm looking at this picture.
Is the back of the lighthouse blanked off and then the front facing the waterfront is open?
Yeah.
This is the back of the lighthouse in this picture.
But I mean the lantern room itself.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's what I, I thought the first picture I saw, I thought I saw part of it was blanked.
A lot of trees back there.
So I'm not surprised that you don't want to set them on fire.
Yeah, exactly.
Signal to the trees.
Crazy.
2011, it was made a national historic landmark and that was the 12th lighthouse to be given
that distinction.
And the only one that was after that was Montauk Lighthouse.
Montauk Point.
I need a list of our episodes now that we're at 44.
We can go to our map.
The map.
Check our map.
That's Split Rock Lighthouse.
Very popular, very well known.
I think one of the most photographed lighthouses in the United States because of its surrounding
terrain and everything.
It's really pretty.
Yeah.
That'd be a cool spot to visit.
Yeah.
So, and earlier that 116,000, that's paying people.
So people that pay to come in and check out the lighthouse.
But Split Rock, what's it called?
Area.
It's a reserve or something.
That whole area is like hiking.
You can park and hike.
And there's a little bit of a hike that goes down to the water where that picture was taken.
Where you can see the whole cliff and a lighthouse on the side.
And so that's not even counting the people who visit just to look around the area and
not just the lighthouse.
I forget that people can just happen to be next to a lighthouse and not be like, this
is why I'm here.
Yeah.
They're like, oh cool, a lighthouse.
But then they do whatever they're passionate about, like hiking or fishing or whatever.
Oh, neat.
The Outer Banks.
I mean, I can't, it's the one trip we took, right?
But that's what we were there for, was to see the lighthouses and then also enjoy, we
went, played nine holes.
We went to the beach, collected shells.
We did stuff like that.
But it was kind of funny to me.
That was a super potent lighthouse culture area.
Yeah, definitely.
But also seen through the lens of us.
That's what we're going for.
I wonder, like people who went to Ocracoke, what percent of them went to see the lighthouse?
Yeah.
And like 10, 10, 30, 50.
A lot of time you're like, oh cool, there's an island.
We can go there.
And it's like things to do on the island.
And one of them is to go see the lighthouse.
It's like, I'm thinking a lot of people would just be like, no.
Yeah.
Well, it's like you go to Western Europe and you know, what is there to do in every city?
Like in Germany, every city, there's a church you got to see, there's a bridge you got to
see and there's some World War II thing that happened.
Literally every city, there's the same three things and they're all really cool, but lighthouses
are all unique.
I'm a big fan.
We love them.
I'm a big fan here at the lighthouse low down.
Lighthouse low down.
Well thank you.
Yeah, that's it.
Everyone needs to go check out our map on the website.
I worked really hard on it.
It took me like an hour.
Is that a whole?
Yeah.
Wow.
I was way slower than you.
It looks really good.
That's very cool.
Yeah.
It's fun.
Interactive little map.
We'll have to add old Mackinac on there and add our split rock, but I hope you guys enjoyed
it.
We have a review and another two lighthouse suggestions just in the past couple of days.
So that's kind of fun.
I added them to our list so we can do that, but thank you for reaching out.
Everyone send us a voicemail, send us an email.
We love to get communication from you guys and leave us a review if you liked listening
to this podcast because we love reading what people have to say about it.
Unless you don't like it, then get out of here.
But you can check us out on Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown where we post pictures of
all of our lighthouses and you can check us out on YouTube and LinkedIn.
We got anywhere you listen to your podcast, you can find us there.
All over the place.
Yeah.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown.