It wasn’t just fireworks lighting up the night sky in Two Harbors, Minn., this Fourth of July.
For the first time in six years, the iconic light from the North Shore city’s lighthouse beacon 25 miles northeast of Duluth will once again sweep across Lake Superior.
The lighthouse’s light went dark in November 2019 due to a hardware failure. With help from the U.S. Coast Guard, four volunteer lighthouse keepers with the Lake County Historical Society — which owns the lighthouse— installed a temporary beacon so the facility could continue to operate as a private aid to navigation on the lake.
But it’s a flashing light, “that detracts a little bit from that iconic beacon that you see sweeping across Agate Bay,” said Ellen Lynch, executive director of the historical society.
So the organization began fundraising to purchase a new light. It raised $50,000 and bought an LED beacon from a Finnish company that mimics the rotational sweeping pattern of the original lighthouse.
And now the Lake County Historical Society planned to light the new beacon on July 4 as part of a celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the organization, just before the Independence Day fireworks show.
“This has been a long journey for us — from fundraising to installation — and we’re incredibly proud of what our community has accomplished,” said Sam Gangi, president of the historical society board.
The Two Harbors lighthouse is the oldest continuously operating light on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It was built in 1893 (17 years before the more well-known Split Rock Lighthouse was completed) to guide ships into the iron ore docks that were built in Agate Bay a decade earlier.
The Historical Society took ownership of the structure in 1999. It operates a museum and bed-and-breakfast, and is also responsible to the U.S. Coast Guard for keeping it lit as a “private aid to navigation.” And now that light will look much like it did over a century ago.
“The new beacon will bring back that iconic sweep and signature of our original light and be as close as possible to the original,” Lynch said.
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