December 11, 1820: Birth of Duluth and Superior Pioneer George Stuntz

On this Day in 1820, Superior and Duluth pioneer George Stuntz was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania. By the mid 1840s he was working as a surveyor in Iowa. In 1852 he accepted a contract to survey at the head of Lake Superior. He settled first in Superior and surveyed Douglas County. In 1854 he moved across the bay and set up a dock and a  trading post on Minnesota Point, where he established mile marker zero and began surveying what would become Duluth and most of St. Louis County (the 1858 Minnesota Point Lighthouse sits atop the marker). He surveyed the state road from Duluth to Lake Vermilion in 1869—and then he built the road. It was said he helped interest Jay Cooke in the region and “knew of the presence of mineral wealth…before any of the pioneer explorers for iron began seriously to prospect.” Stuntz died in 1902 at 82 years of age. Learn more about this remarkable Superiorite and Duluthian here.

George Stuntz. (Duluth Public Library)