What Is the Aerial Lift Bridge?
This is Duluth’s famous vertical lift bridge, which spans the entrance of the world’s largest inland harbor!
What Makes It Historical?
With the completion of a canal to give ships access to Duluth’s huge harbor area, it was quickly apparent that land-bound folks needed a way to get across that canal! It would have to be able to withstand huge waves and freezing winters, and so, the city settled on a design by Thomas F. McGibray, modeled after a similar bridge in Rouen, France! Completed in 1905, this bridge was designed to convey a battery-powered gondola across the canal in five minutes with a capacity of 350 passengers and their vehicles, or 125,000 pounds total!
By 1929, there were so many cars needing to cross that the bridge had to be redesigned! Claude Turner spearheaded that effort with the idea to remove the gondola entirely and make the bridge’s lift more vertical than horizontal. Cars would cross like a normal bridge until it was time for a ship to pass, in which case, the bridge would rise up 138 feet over the canal in 60 seconds! Even today, the bridge rises twenty-five times a day, 5,000 times a year!
How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?
- Become a member of the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association!
- Donate to the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association!
- Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!
How Do I Get There?
601 S Lake Ave
Duluth, MN 55802
(Take Me There!)
When Should I Visit?
Whenever the mood strikes you!