Piece of history washes ashore
Duluth News Tribune - 12/02/2006

An almost 130-year-old piece of history washed ashore near Duluth’s Lakewalk this week, and city officials are wondering what to do with it.

The large timber crib apparently floated up Tuesday night near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

“The Coast Guard, as well as a couple historians, think it’s part of an old train trestle from the 1870s that’s been sitting on the bottom of the lake,” park maintenance lead worker Tom Kasper said Friday.

For a period during the 19th century, grain elevators were built in Lake Superior. They burned in the 1880s. Kasper said pieces occasionally wash ashore, but nothing like this cribbing.

“It’s probably about 70 feet long by 30 feet by 5- to 8-feet high,’’ he said. “It’s a massive structure that’s all hand-hewn red pine with large spikes holding it together.”

“The Coast Guard has actually offered, if we are interested in leaving it in place as a historic interpretive, to provide the chain from one of their boats to securely hold it in place. Whether or not that happens, I don’t know. Their concern is that we get it anchored. If it were to free itself and get out into the shipping channel, it could severely damage even a 1,000-foot boat,” Kasper said.

An official with the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit was not available for comment Friday afternoon.