Gold Rock Point is a rugged, lichen-covered cliff along Lake Superior, viewable from the Lighthouse. It offers the primary point where underwater divers can access the Madeira shipwreck. In 1997 the private landowners offered to sell Gold Rock Point and the surrounding land to P&TC for $1 million. We immediately launched a fundraising campaign and began lobbying the Minnesota Legislature to expand the park boundaries to include this land. We also mobilized public support to persuade the Lake County Board of Commissioners to approve the sale. Thanks to these efforts, which included many dedicated individuals and foundations, Gold Rock Point is today part of Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.

The effort to save this land gained urgency when, in 1998, our then-president Nadine Blacklock was killed in a car accident nearby. This tragedy occurred while we were in the midst of negotiations. The landowners agreed to sell significantly below market value as they were motivated to see it protected in its natural state. By 2003 we successfully lobbied to expand the park boundary and conveyed the parcel to the DNR.

This was the last remaining private shoreline between Gold Rock Point and the lighthouse. It had been developed with four cottages around 1937, nearly ten years before Split Rock Lighthouse was established as a wayside, later to become a state park.

In the early 2000s this area was a hot-spot for residential development and the landowner became interested in selling. P&TC worked diligently to acquire the land, then relocated the cottages to a private property nearby. The Gitchi Gami State Trail was later built using both this property and the adjacent Gold Rock Point property we helped acquire for the park years earlier.

In the middle of this State Park was a privately owned, kitschy tourist attraction called Split Rock Trading Post. Once a popular stopover located on highway 61, many tourists paid the dime admittance to climb the wooden tower and see the lighthouse.

Around 2000, a fire claimed the shop and it never reopened. Then, in 2010, with a planned highway re-alignment, the owners sold the property to P&TC. We immediately conveyed it to the state park and it was developed into a wayside overlook.

In conjunction with this project the landowner sold to P&TC a small 4.7-acre undeveloped property a quarter-mile up the road, which we conveyed to the park at the same time.