Northlandia: How a few feet of Wisconsin ended up on Minnesota side of St. Louis River

DULUTH — The border between Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, is fairly straightforward to explain.

One is on this aspect of the St. Louis River; the opposite is on that aspect.

And normally, that’s right. However there are two tiny slices of Superior in what you’d count on to be mainland Duluth.

A 3.3-acre parcel on the tip of Spirit Lake Marina and RV Park in Duluth’s Riverside neighborhood and about 4 acres on the finish of Hallett Dock 6 in West Duluth, each alongside the St. Louis River, would seem like in Duluth to most individuals. They’re solely accessible by land from Duluth, in any case.

When Jeff Heller, president of Hallett Dock 6, an lively rail facility, purchased the property, he knew he’d decide up a bit of Wisconsin, however did not know the precise particulars.

“Then we seen we have been being taxed,” Heller stated.

The tax invoice listed a 4-acre parcel in Wisconsin. Immediately, annual taxes quantity to $186,

in response to Douglas County land information.

In addition to taxes, the Wisconsin property would not actually have an effect on the dock’s operations, Heller stated. Nothing is constructed on it and when he prolonged the railroad tracks, he purposely went as much as, however didn’t cross, the state line.

He did joke about opening a bar on the Wisconsin land that boaters might drive as much as of their pontoons.

The slivers of land on the finish of Hallett Dock 6 and Spirit Lake Marina are formally in Superior, due to a state-line dispute case determined by a U.S. Supreme Courtroom greater than 100 years in the past.

The 1920 resolution set the boundary, and prompted a survey and mapping undertaking of the border the next yr.

In 2018, surveyor Tony Lueck, of Duluth Township, replicated that 1921 survey, impressed by an error he discovered whereas finishing a survey of the ghost city of St. Louis close to Oliver, Wisconsin.

“I ran the bearings and distance up the map, after triangulation, but it surely did not shut by 150 ft,” Lueck stated. “I assumed, ‘What the hell? How can now we have a Supreme Courtroom map and it doesn’t shut? These guys are higher than that.’”

So he dug into the court-ordered 1921 border map and its coordinate desk.

The border itself was drawn accurately on the map, however a number of factors that surveyors might use to find the border had been copied incorrect. For instance, a number of numbers have been switched round and the incorrect path was recorded, Lueck found after evaluating the court docket’s coordinates with the agricultural triangulation books present in archives.

“I assumed my survey work was horses—, but it surely wasn’t,” he stated. “There’s an error on the silly line desk on the map.”

His work in replicating the 1921 border survey meant fieldwork on and close to the frozen St. Louis River in addition to a substantial period of time trying by way of microfilm of newspaper protection of the Supreme Courtroom case, county information and archived materials saved on the Jim Dan Hill Library Particular Collections on the College of Wisconsin-Superior.

“It’s only a head-scratcher. There’s no cash in it, nothing like that. It’s simply attention-grabbing historical past, isn’t it?” Lueck stated. “It’d avoid wasting errors from being made sooner or later.”

And, along with uncovering errors, he discovered extra in regards to the historical past of how elements of Wisconsin are in what we usually consider as Minnesota.

Wisconsin grew to become a state in 1848 — a decade earlier than Minnesota — and set the border because the deepest a part of the river, typically known as the pure or essential channel. However Minnesota argued the border fell about halfway between the 2 shores of the river.

Over time, the banks of the St. Louis River modified. Generally the change got here naturally, however most dramatically it was altered by people. Whole islands have been dredged out to make extra room for delivery and fill was added to increase land, creating docks and more room for different waterfront industries.

The Minnesota-side shoreline started encroaching after which crossing the deepest a part of the river (and what Wisconsin thought of the state border).

On the finish of Duluth’s 59th Avenue West, Zenith Furnace Co. operated on what’s now Hallett Dock 6. It had stuffed in and prolonged into the St. Louis River.

And the deepest a part of the river additionally ran proper alongside the shore of what’s now Duluth’s Riverside neighborhood, but it surely was coated by piers when the shipyard of McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Co. in Riverside constructed ships for World Conflict I. These docks at the moment are Spirit Lake Marina and RV Park.

The businesses have been being taxed by each states, prompting a lawsuit.

Witnesses within the yearslong border case included “lake captains, professors of historical past and geography and outdated Indian settlers,” in response to a March 9, 1920, Duluth Information Tribune story saying the Supreme Courtroom’s resolution.

It was largely a struggle over semantics, Lueck stated.

“Minnesota’s premise was that the waters have been like a lake — the waters of Lake Superior all the way in which up not less than to Large Island if less than Fond Du Lac — and Wisconsin was saying ‘No, it’s all the time been the river. The mouth has all the time been between Minnesota (Level) and Wisconsin Level,’” he stated.

With the border settled, the properties that straddle the border are not double taxed. Terry Johnson, Superior’s metropolis assessor and the previous assistant county assessor for St. Louis County, is acquainted with the properties from either side of the border.

“They’ll be handled simply as comparable as another properties … there isn’t any type of particular association,” Johnson stated.

“I truthfully by no means even considered it after I was assessing what was over there in Duluth,” Johnson stated of his position at St. Louis County. “I simply checked out ‘OK, that is what’s in Minnesota, worth that portion of land, let Superior fear about what’s over there.’”

Charlie Stauduhar, proprietor of Spirit Lake Marina and RV Park, stated paying taxes to Superior yearly isn’t a giant deal.

Property taxes on the Wisconsin portion quantity to simply over $1,000,

in response to Douglas County information.

He does see the variations play out in environmental rules.

Most notably, final fall, when Minnesota and Wisconsin have been

trying to seize and euthanize geese alongside the St. Louis River

in an effort to carry again wholesome stands of untamed rice. Minnesota officers weren’t fairly prepared, however Wisconsin was, Stauduhar stated.

“So the Wisconsin guys stated, ‘Can we use your property? And we’ll chase them down onto your property and we’ll corral them up on the Wisconsin half,’” Stauduhar stated.

In an electronic mail, Dave Grandmaison, St. Louis River wild rice and habitat coordinator for the Wisconsin Division of Pure Sources, stated that whereas there is no such thing as a lively administration on the Wisconsin parcels, “I can verify that WDNR utilized Wisconsin property and waters for our goose roundup in 2022 to guard wild rice, together with the Wisconsin property on the finish of the Spirit Lake Marina slip.”

For probably the most half, the marina’s border is simply an oddity. “It’s one thing to make gentle of,” Stauduhar stated. “A brief-term buyer coming in with their camper or one thing, we’ll say, ‘Hey, we’re going to place you down in Wisconsin.’”