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Minnesota Historical Society Split Rock Collection
The Keepers of Split Rock Lighthouse
As the first light keeper at Split Rock, Orren “Pete” Young served 18 years at the site.
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Minnesota Historical Society Split Rock Collection
The Keepers of Split Rock Lighthouse
Orren “Pete” Young.
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Minnesota Historical Society Split Rock Collection
The Keepers of Split Rock Lighthouse
Robert Bennetts was the last civilian keeper, serving 14 years and retiring in 1961, when Coast Guard personnel took over all duties.
Split Rock's Civilian Lighthouse Keepers
Orren P. “Pete” Young served as head keeper from July 20, 1910, to March 12, 1928, when he retired at age 70.
His first and second assistants, Edward Sexton and Roy Gill, died less than three months after the dedication in a boating accident October 2, 1910, on their way to Beaver Bay to get the mail. Subsequently, 16 assistant keepers would serve under Young, several more than once.
Franklin J. Covell served twice as second assistant keeper, once as first assistant and was promoted to head keeper upon Young’s retirement. He served from April 1, 1928, to his retirement on May 24, 1944. He also retired at 70, with 31 years in the U.S. Lighthouse service.
James Gagnon served as head keeper from July 27, 1944, to April 30, 1946. At the time he assumed duties from Franklin Covell, Thomas Hassing was first assistant and would serve until his 1953 retirement from the lighthouse service. Coast Guard personnel were assigned to fill additional positions as needed. John Balma (March-September 1946) and Floyd Miller (July-September 1947) were temporary appointments.
Morse E. Rhea served as head keeper from May 7, 1946, until July 31, 1947.
Robert E. Bennetts, the last civilian keeper, served from August 13, 1947, until 1961.
Orren Young Keeper 1910-1928 Edward Sexton 1st Asst. 1910 Roy Gill 2nd Asst. 1910 Lee Benton 1st Asst. 1910-1913 J. Taylor 2nd Asst. 1910 Gilbert Hanson 2nd Asst. 1910 Frank La Pine 2nd Asst. 1911 Hans Christensen 2nd Asst. 1911-1912 Ernest Kohnert 2nd Asst. 1912 & 1st Asst. 1913 Franklin Covell 2nd Asst. 1913-1916, 1922-1923 & 1st Asst. 1924-1928 Harry Thompson 1st Asst. 1913-1923 John Mutenen 2nd Asst. 1913-1916 E. Means 2nd Asst. 1917-1919 Jessie Credland 2nd Asst. 1919-1920 William Small 2nd Asst. 1920-1922 Charles Fenton 2nd Asst. 1923 Clarence Tupper 1st Asst. 1923-1924 Adam Sayles 2nd Asst. 1924-1929, 1930-1931, 1931-1933 Franklin Covell Keeper 1928-1944 Justice Luick 1st Asst. 1928-1936 Michael Meyers 2nd Asst. 1929 Gardar Pederson 2nd Asst. 1931, 1938 Thomas Hassing 2nd Asst. 1933 & 1st Asst. 1938-1953 Eli Payment 2nd Asst. 1934-1935 Frederick Jeffery 2nd Asst. 1935 Sterling Malone 1st Asst. 1936-1937, 1937-1938 Albert Davidson 2nd Asst. 1936 Nelson Goudreau 2nd Asst. 1936-1937 Carl Malone 2nd Asst. 1937 Frank Johnson 2nd Asst. 1937-1961 Frank Pohl 1st Asst. 1937 James Gagnon Keeper 1944-1946 Morse Rhea Keeper 1946-1947 Robert Bennetts Keeper 1947-1961
Vivid Memories of Visiting the Light
An Interview by Ann Klefstad with G.T. Amell
Assistant keeper Tom Hassing came to Split Rock light station for a half-season in 1933, returned in 1938 and stayed there with his wife, Anna, until he retired in 1953. During these years, the posting was year-round and they lived there with their children, Evelyn and Harry. Later, after she was married, Evelyn Hassing Amell’s son and daughter, Tom and Terry, would spend time with their grandfather at the light.
Tom, who goes by “G.T.,” now lives in Arizona. He describes summers at Split Rock Light with his grandparents as the best part of his life.
“My favorite thing about the lighthouse was arriving there, and my least favorite thing was leaving,” he recalls.
In a phone conversation, his memories of the place came through the senses, in the way of childhood.
“I always wondered what it was about the air there, so clean and pure it seemed to almost burn your nose. Was it the water? The pines?”
His grandparents, Tom and Anna Hassing, inspired his strongest feelings.
“My grandfather was a classic Don Quixote type to my sister and me … the master of captivation.”
G.T. remembers that his grandfather would take his sister and him down “the Old Road, that was what we called it.” This was the road down to the dock that bypassed the tramway.
Grandpa Tom would hitch up the boat trailer to the Jeep and take them down to go out on the water. On the way, he’d make up stories “about anything … a chipmunk maybe. He’d tell us what the little fella would be up to, and we’d listen, mouths agape. We’d believe anything he told us.”
His memories of his grandmother “Nana” are as vivid. G.T. and his sister would take the bus up the shore, and Grandpa Tom would pick them up at the station in Beaver Bay with the Jeep. They’d arrive, pulling into the garage behind the keeper’s house, and come out through the big side door and look toward the pantry window. There stood Nana with a scarf on her head (tied with the knot in front) holding a fresh loaf of dark bread in one hand and a pan of sticky buns in the other … both still warm.
“Her timing was impeccable!”
The routines at the light grew familiar to the boy. There were always three keepers, and they would rotate the watches: night, evening and day.
The children weren’t supposed to go alone into the light tower or into the fog house with its big engines. But sometimes Grandpa Tom would take G.T. and Terry with him.
“We’d walk the long, long flight of stairs, that old single-file staircase to the signal, and up the echoey circular stairs to the light, and he’d tell us, ‘Okay, push the button now.’ I’d see the light go so far out there, I’d think, I can’t see how far that is, out into infinity ….”
Sometimes the fog would descend, and Grandpa Tom would take the children into the fog house, “The dread of dreads! He’d have me push the other button … I’d say, no no! He’d say, ‘It can’t hurt you, come on.’ … It would come up loud, loud, and then stop with, like, a slap - but somehow we could sleep with that thing on.”
There’s a photo of G.T. and Terry standing next to a sign saying “Keep Off the Grass.” G.T. doesn’t remember why the photo was taken, but he does remember this: “I must have been maybe 5 years old. One day, shortly before supper, I pulled that sign out, and couldn’t get it back in the ground. I saw my grandpa coming out of the signal house, and panicked. … I ran and I hid behind the couch. The family came in. They all had dinner. I could hear and smell everything. I overheard them talking about how it was too bad I was missing this good dessert. … Finally I came out.”
The flagpole used to be out front of Head Keeper Bennett’s house, and the children would help ceremoniously lower the flag and fold it.
“We didn’t follow my grandpa around - but he always had time for us, he’d sit and tell us stories, there were the usual chores, mowing the lawn and such.”
Grandpa Tom had wonderful nutty expressions: “Holy oh jumpin’ up and down mackinaw city bobcat rooster!” was a favorite; and there was a certain box in the closet that the kids would always ask about. He’d tell them, “There’s cockinagaways in there.”
“Once a week or so we’d all jump in the jeep and go to Mattson’s store in Beaver Bay for groceries. It had wooden shelves on the wall, everything was arranged in order, and they’d reach things down for you. We’d load the Jeep up with boxes of groceries - no bags then.”
When the mail would come, the kids would want to deliver the mail to the Adamses, who owned the gift shop. “If there was only one letter, my sister and I would each hold a corner, ’cause there was a candy bar for whoever brought the mail ….”
“When you went into the Adamses store the screen door would slam, and you’d smell the cedar boxes and fresh coffee. They sold little hip-roofed bird houses made of birch bark, those drums made out of tomato cans with rubber stretched over them. Nana made the donuts there, real good ones with lots of nutmeg.”
Helen and Walt Johnson lived in the end house, and were the only ones who had television. The kids would go there and stand on the back porch “till the mosquitoes got bad, and then we go in, and Walt would pop popcorn in the old crank-top popper and we’d watch ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘Talent Scouts.’”
At that time, in the 1950s, more than a thousand people a day would tour the park. They’d peer in through the windows of the houses – “Nana hated that,” G.T. said.
In back of the barns in those days there were long runs of clothesline. “Grandpa would throw a tarp over to make a tent, we’d anchor it with rocks, and we’d play cowboy with grandpa.” Other days there were thimbleberries to pick with Nana for pies, or little wooden trucks for making roads in the gravel piles by the old derrick.
G.T. grew up in Duluth, graduated from Denfield High School and worked in the industries that typified Duluth in those days: Diamond Tool, Clyde Iron, U.S. Steel.
When he married again in 1999, the first place he went with his wife was Split Rock Lighthouse – where Lee Radzak, the current keeper, turned the light on for them.
That light hasn’t been needed for navigation since 1969, but now and again it’s reawakened for reasons of the heart, as it will be this summer, for its hundredth anniversary. It’s been made like new again in preparation; let us hope that it will stand for another hundred years.
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