Lake Superior Indians long recognized the unique nature of this bay, naming it "Kitchi-Bitobig," meaning "double body of water." When white settlers first arrived around the bay in 1854, a few Indian families lived in tepees and cabins along the shore. After the 1870s, the white population grew rapidly, and increasing reliance on ship transportation made the need for protection more urgent; storms and shipwrecks led to demands for a lighthouse, built in 1885 as the first on the American North Shore. Protection for this harbor of refuge increased when the east breakwater was built in 1884, and in 1901 the Corps of Engineers completed the west breakwater and continued the 16-foot dredging project, shielding the harbor more fully from violent seas. For three generations, the bay was a busy center of economic and social life, with commercial fishing, shipping, rafting of sawlogs and pulpwood, dredging gravel, picnics and bonfires on the Point, Fourth of July celebrations, skating, swimming, sailboat races, and the arrivals and departures of the steamships "Dixon" and "America" and many other vessels. Until the new highway along the North Shore was built in the 1920s, this harbor remained the focus of life in Grand Marais.