Silver Bay

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Another beautiful, but chilly day, as we awoke to upper 40s.  We put the electric blanket on last night; good move.  Hey, doesn’t everyone camp with an electric blanket?

Today we went into Silver Bay, an interesting little town.  It is the site of the first taconite producing company in North America.  It began production in 1956.  Northshore Mining is owned by Cliffs Natural Resources.  Most everyone living in Silver Bay is employed here; employing about 600.  Ships come into Silver Bay to load up with taconite, but only a couple ships per month now. None were loading today.

That’s Rocky Taconite welcoming you to Silver Bay.  The town owes it’s existence to taconite and the plant here.

Taconite is pelletized iron ore using a process developed by the University of Minnesota.  Ore, mostly magnetite, with an iron content of about 10% and other worthless rock is ground to a fine powder then separated using a magnet and water flotation. The richened iron is mixed with clay and rolled into marble sized pellets. The magnetite is converted to hematite by heating to 2200F.  The resulting pellet is 30-40% iron and very hard.

At the end of the plant are huge piles of taconite awaiting pickup.

After visiting a few other sites in town we moseyed down to the Split Rock Lighthouse.  This lighthouse was built as a result of six ships sinking and killing 29 men in a really bad storm in 1905.  It was put in service July 1910 and sits upon a tall rock outcropping (Split Rock). The lighthouse is 54 feet tall, it’s beam is 168 feet above Lake Superior.  Its 3rd order Fresnel lens casts a beam visible for 22 miles.  There is also a fog horn audible for 6 miles.

  

It is quite a picturesque lighthouse.  Due to the time it was built, it had many of the latest features, like a mantle instead of a wick.  Pressurized fueling and a mercury, rotational bearing instead of wheels, which were a high maintenance item.  The lighthouse was staffed by three keepers and an assistant.  It used a weighted cable to rotate, kind of like a Grandfather clock.

It was decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1969. The Minnesota Historical Society maintains it and handled the tours today.  The State owned it until the 1990s.  Some keepers quarters have been restored with period items.  The MNHS has really done a nice job restoring and keeping it up.  Minnesotans claim it is the most photographed lighthouse in the US; not sure we agree, but that’s their hype.

One of the Keepers quarters.  They lived here with their families.

Tomorrow we hike to some falls and visit Two Harbors.