Rebuilt Berth 10 welcomes first vessel in decades at Duluth port

A tugboat and a 240-foot deck barge loaded with project cargo became the first vessel in decades to dock at rebuilt Berth 10, giving Duluth a visible sign that a major port project is moving from construction into active freight use.

The Meredith Ashton made the arrival at the northeast-facing berth on the Clure Terminal Expansion pier, where port officials have spent years rebuilding dock space that can handle the kind of heavy-lift and breakbulk cargo central to the harbor’s business. For shipping customers and terminal operators, the docking mattered because it showed the berth is usable again, not just finished on paper. For St. Louis County’s economy, it is a test of whether the waterfront can keep supporting the jobs and cargo handling tied to Great Lakes freight traffic.

The Clure Public Marine Terminal is the port’s only general cargo terminal. It covers 120 acres in the middle of the harbor, has dock faces on three sides, and sits at Seaway depth of 27 feet. The Port Authority describes the Port of Duluth-Superior as North America’s farthest-inland freshwater seaport, 2,342 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and says it moves an average of 33 million short tons a year, including about 20 million tons of iron ore and more than 1 million tons of grain each shipping season.

The Berth 10 docking fit into a broader terminal expansion that has been reshaping the waterfront. A 2024 project included reconstruction of 625 linear feet of Berth 11, demolition of former grain elevators and utility work at the Duluth Lake Port facility, and reconstruction of 1,175 linear feet of dock wall along with 7.5 acres of new laydown space. Earlier port materials said a $10.5 million Maritime Administration Port Infrastructure Development Program grant helped fund a 56,000-square-foot warehouse and dock-wall rehabilitation at Berths 10 and 11.

The port opened that 56,000-square-foot warehouse at Clure in September 2023, adding truck bays and an enclosed railcar dock to a terminal that already had 486,000 square feet of warehouse space and 40 acres of outdoor storage. Together, those investments are aimed at keeping Duluth competitive for project cargo, heavy lifts and other freight that depends on rail, truck and ship connections working in sync.

The Berth 10 milestone also came during an active season on the lake. Ocean7 Ranger became the first oceangoing vessel to complete a full transit of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System and reach Duluth on April 8, and Asian Spirit delivered 39 wind turbine blades in August 2025 in a six-voyage project totaling more than 100,000 freight tons. With Berth 10 back in service, the port is making its case that Duluth-Superior remains a working commercial hub, not a relic on the shore.