DULUTH – Northeast Minnesota’s treasured Bentleyville “tour of lights” attraction is closed temporarily after gusty winds that peaked at 61 miles per hour Wednesday morning damaged several displays.
The winter storm that dumped more than 10 inches of snow on parts of Duluth is also responsible for an Alden Township fatality. A 69-year-old man died when a tree fell on him Wednesday morning.
Bentleyville executive director Nathan Bentley said continuing high winds off Lake Superior on Wednesday made it impossible to begin the extensive repairs.
A 40-foot wide by 20-foot high steel American flag was bent “like a spaghetti noodle,” he said.
The storm tipped over portable bathrooms, damaged a gift shop roof and knocked over displays and other decorations, while piling up snow drifts.
Canceling a night “is one of the last things we like to even do,” Bentley said. “But with the amount of damage that we saw this morning, there’s no possible way that we were going to be able to put it back together with the wind.”
Bentley is gathering a group of volunteers to begin repairs Thursday morning in hopes Bentleyville can open for its Thanksgiving night crowd.
The free light display tour is famous for its cookies, cocoa and winter hat giveaways and has for nearly two decades operated at Bayfront Festival Park after its 2001 beginnings in Bentley’s Esko, Minn., yard. It saw nearly 300,000 visitors last year. Weather caused a closure in 2022, and similar damage in 2020.
