Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum (a.k.a “The Cribs”) has some interesting history, but in order to find our small and creative cache you must venture into/unto Lake Superior. Rule one H20 its everywhere, please use caution at all times of the year. The hardest part just might be keeping your GPS dry! You can either walk on water in the winter months of course, swim in the summer, when the waters still a bone chilling 38* in Aug. Or venture out by kayak or by boat! It should be an easy find once your on the ruins of Uncle Harvey, and listening to your inner child.
But... with all of our 20 caches, come prepared... FTF our signature items-1920's Buffalo Nickel, and a quality Lake Superior agate!
~~There are conflicting stories on just what the cribs are, ranging from a prohibition era bootleg casino and storage to a fishing dock.
The official story is that is the remains of a commercial enterprise gone bad.
The story, not nearly as romantic as the prohibition stories is still quite interesting. Built in 1919 as a sand and gravel hopper by an enterprising man named Whitney. In 1919 the Lake Superior area was a hotbed of activity and Whitney didn't like the congestion of the harbor area especially in the busy summer months. So this contraption was built. But was later abandoned in 1922.
There is a plaque at the site and it reads:
It is the ruins of an energetic but short-lived commercial enterprise by Whitney Brothers of Superior, Wisconsin. It was Harvey Whitney’s brain-child. The world will now know the true story – an unromantic but intriguing one for sure.
The structure was a sand and gravel hopper, built in the winter of 1919 and abandoned in 1922. It was a frantic era of Duluth construction in 1919 and Harvey was looking for efficiencies for his sand and gravel operation. He didn’t like the canal congestion, especially in the heavy summer months. He took a chance that the city would revive efforts to rebuild the Outer Harbor Breakwater which had been abandoned in 1872.
It was a fancy idea. Sand from the lake around the Apostle Island and gravel from Grand Marais were hauled to Duluth on the scow, LIMIT, using the steam tug William A. Whitney. The LIMIT was tied to the concrete foundation structure and unloaded to the steel hopper with two steam powered clam shells. A large conveyor belt on a trestle carried the materials to shore where they were dropped on top of a tunnel into which trucks would maneuver for loading. This tunnel is where the casino activity is said to have occurred.
But, Harvey Whitney guessed wrong on the breakwater. For 92 years now the primary use of the cribs has been by scuba divers and now curious geocachers, looking for another ™Sk8erfamily cache. The greatest of the Great Lakes was just too powerful – just too unpredictable. He tried to deal with Superior on its terms – and lost. Thus, his family named it “Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum”.
Now it is a landmark for the area, and in the summer you can often find kids diving off the cribs into the cold waters of Lake Superior. We’ll likely never know. But it does raise the idea that there may be much more of Duluth’s past submerged just below the waters in the corner of the lake. When your skipping stones eventually sink, they may be settling on a piece of Zenith City history. Enjoy this interesting piece of history and don't forget to be part of history before its another mystery by signing the log! Later Sk8erfamily 