Standing atop a lonely one-hundred-foot cliff, Split Rock Lighthouse owes its existence to the storms of 1905. Over thirty ships were either badly damaged or sunk near Split Rock during a single storm in November of that year. The construction of Split Rock Lighthouse was a major engineering feat in that all materials were hoisted up the cliff by crane. By 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard proclaimed Split Rock the most visited lighthouse in the United States. Even after its decommission in 1969, the tourists kept coming. Today, hundreds of thousands of visitors continue to tour the lighthouse and its many exhibits.