A long-time lodge on Lake Superior's north shore has been destroyed by an overnight fire.
Officials with the Cook County sheriff's office say the blaze at the historic Lutsen Lodge was called in at 12:24 a.m. Tuesday morning when staffers reported smoke from from the floor resort lodge's lobby area.
Fire fighters from eight area communities responded to the blaze.
Officials say there were no guests on site and no injuries are reported.
"I think we're numb from watching it be burned down," General Manager Edward Vanegas explained to Vineeta Sawkar on the WCCO Morning News.
Vanegas said the flames appeared to be coming up from the floor board lobby and he thought they could be coming from the basement.
"There are boilers in that basement so, no one is going to know for sometime what the origins are but it appeared it was coming up from underneath the floor in terms of the basement."
Vanegas also said they were empty on Monday night but do have guests booked the rest of the week. The only person in the building was an overnight auditor who spotted the smoke and called 9-1-1.
"The flames (were) shooting above the trees at the old lodge," said Tim Miller, who works at the nearby Lutsen Ski Resort. "I swung down, parked by the town homes, and walked through the woods, and watched 'er burn with some employees."
The resort is said to be Minnesota's first and oldest resort, first opening in 1885. Fire also damaged the building in 1949 and 1951.
"We had just finished the third floor expansion. There were no rooms on the third floor for many decades. Just stunning, with the modern North Shore culture we were bringing back, and of course all of that is now gone," Vanegas laments.
The building that burned was located south of highway 61 on the shore of Lake Superior.
There was a video of the fire posted by Miller on his Facebook page.
A message posted on the Lutsen Lodge Facebook page indicates they plan to rebuild.
Fire departments that worked the blaze were from Lutsen, Tofte, Grand Marais, Maple Hill, Gunflint, Finland, Silver Bay, and Grand Portage.
It was last summer when a popular bar and restaurant at Lutsen, Papa Charlies, was destroyed by fire.
"Losing those two pieces is just devastating," Vanegas said. "It needs to come back. We lost the resort in '49, we lost the resort in '51. There's been rebuilding efforts over those older years, we can certainly do the same thing again, and bring it back, and start memories again."