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Minnesota Historical Society Split Rock Collection
Family Life at Split Rock Lighthouse
All keepers in the U.S. Lighthouse Service were expected to be in full uniform at the time of inspections, even surprise inspections. Hans F. Christensen, in center, served as second assistant at Split rock Lighthouse for one year from 1911-12.
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Minnesota Historical Society Split Rock Collection
Family Life at Split Rock Lighthouse
Maintenance (here on the fog signal) was an unending duty for keepers.
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Lee Radzak
Family Life at Split Rock Lighthouse
With the exception of second growth forest and the loss of the first storage barn to fire, the station today looks much as it did when Pete Young became keeper in 1910.
This story is part of our series on Lake Superior lighthouses.
There wasn’t much turnover of the top keeper spot in the beginning for Split Rock Light Station. Despite the isolation of the location, the light’s first 34 years were tended by only two head keepers: Orren “Pete” Young and Franklin Covell.
Although his family frequently visited him at the lighthouse, Young’s wife and children never moved into the house nearest the light that he occupied during his 18-year career as head keeper. They lived in Michigan and later in Duluth then Two Harbors after Young started as the station’s first head keeper for the sum of $624 annually.
But that’s not to say that during Young’s tenure there weren’t children living among the three keepers’ dwellings, which were finished before the light tower itself. Young’s assistants (of which Covell was eventually one) kept their families at the light. Children, while enjoying close encounters with wildlife at the light station and with somewhat free run around the houses, had only supervised access to the tower itself.
The reluctance of Pete Young’s family to move to the site for extended summers likely rose from the fact that it was so isolated, with boats as the only means of transportation. Only occasionally were there visits by the Lighthouse Service tender ships Amaranth and Marigold or the Booth Fisheries’ SS America.
Covell moved his family to the facility in 1913 when he started his lightkeeping career as a 39-year-old second assistant keeper. In 1917, he was reassigned and bounced from station to station in western Lake Superior for several years, returned to Split Rock in 1922 and was finally assigned as first assistant keeper in 1924.
By this time Minnesota Highway 61 was complete and automobile travel began along the shore. Covell’s family still spent summers in the middle house and, like all keepers, moved to town during winter. After Covell was named head keeper in 1928, the family’s seasonal residency continued for three years. In 1931, the family took up permanent residence in the home they’d occupied the six previous summers. The change may have been needed simply because the light station drew more and more tourists, who didn’t always follow the shipping season. A year-round residence of the keeper kept vandals at bay.
Children of the keepers recalled natural wonders – storms and sunsets and wildlife at their doorsteps – and near heroic feats of keeping the light burning and fog signal sounding during foul weather. They were satisfying times of self-sufficient entertainment and amusement.
Their fathers, meanwhile, rotated nightly watches of the light. They tended and repaired the light and buildings, plus became providers in the most basic of ways when they could hunt and fish for the family.
But all was not continuous peace and tranquility, for one of the primary facts of life for anyone living at a U.S. Lighthouse Service station was the annual, unannounced inspection of the facility by the superintendent from the service’s district headquarters.
With dozens of varied tasks like painting, lens cleaning, groundskeeping and equipment repairs to keep up – often while short an assistant or two – head light keepers were nonetheless expected to present an immaculate station to their visiting superintendent. That included the interiors of the three homes. The superintendent felt free to examine pantries and closets and even poke his head into the oven of the kitchen range – never knowing if he’d find a pan of dirty dishes or a batch of freshly baked biscuits.
To top it off, usually only minutes separated the first recognition of the inspector’s pennant flying from the mast of the lighthouse tender and his arrival at the station. The keeper was expected to greet him on the dock in full dress uniform – dark uniform jacket and trousers, black tie, starched white shirt, collar and cuffs and shined shoes.
Typically busy, the keeper cleaned up and changed clothes in record time. Pete Young’s daughter Grace Vokovan remembered, “My father hardly had time to dress in his uniform. He’d be buttoning his shirt while I’d be lacing up his shoes.”
Since Split Rock seldom had discrepancies noted, the keepers and their families obviously maintained their station with an eye to detail and the possibility that the inspector could be on his way.
In many ways, that attention and pride remains true for those who work and live there today.
Learn more about Split Rock: