Biohazard Cleanup Near Bayview Superior, WI

Superior is a city in extreme northwestern Wisconsin and the county seat of Douglas County, sitting at the western tip of Lake Superior.

Together with Duluth, Minnesota, just across St. Louis Bay, Superior forms the "Twin Ports," one of the largest freshwater harbors in the world and the western terminus of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The site was part of the Ojibwe homeland at the Head of the Lakes, where the Ojibwe name for the place, Gete-oodenaang, means "at the old town"; fur-trading posts operated in the area as early as 1661.

Permanent settlement began in 1853, and three early communities at the head of the lake were consolidated into the city of Superior in 1889.

Superior had a population of 26,751 at the 2020 census, with about 11,956 households and an average of just 2.15 people per household, according to Census Bureau QuickFacts.

Superior's growth took off in the 1890s after iron ore was discovered in Minnesota's Mesabi Range, and its docks still ship iron ore (taconite), coal, grain, and limestone across the Great Lakes.

Superior was the final port of call for the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald before she sank in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975.

The SS Meteor, a whaleback freighter built in 1896 and docked on Barker's Island in Superior, survives as a maritime museum ship.

Superior is home to the University of Wisconsin-Superior, founded in 1893 as Superior Normal School to train teachers and now a public liberal arts university enrolling about 2,900 students.

Superior's Fairlawn Mansion, a 42-room Victorian mansion built in 1890, is now operated as a museum.