What happened to the St. Louis County Jail lamps?

Two ornate brass lampposts salvaged from the former county jail could pit the Duluth Heritage Preservation Commission against St. Louis County.

The county removed the lampposts when it thought the building was about to be demolished. But now that the old jail has been sold and restoration plans are in the works, preservationists say the lampposts should be returned.

The county had no business removing the lamps in the first place from a registered local landmark without prior commission approval, said Carolyn Sundquist, vice chairwoman of the Duluth Heritage Preservation Commission.

"Any request to remove historic lampposts like that should have come to the HPC," she said.

County officials say they were just trying to protect the lamps, which were at the Second Street entrance to the jail building.

"At the time, we thought the building was going to be torn down, and we wanted to save those brass lamps rather than have them damaged or stolen," said Gary Eckenberg, St. Louis County's deputy administrator.

He said the building was subsequently shown to prospective buyers without the lampposts in place. One of those prospective buyers was Grant Carlson, who eventually formed Jail Holding LLC to purchase the former jail. Carlson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Eckenberg said the county plans to install the lampposts at the entrance of its new sally port building, just west of the county courthouse.

"The lights were taken down and refurbished with the idea of keeping them in the historic district of the civic center," he said.

New concrete bases and wiring are already in place to receive the lampposts at the sally port, and Eckenberg said he expects no delays in their installation. He said he didn't know when they'd be installed.

Eckenberg said that, to his knowledge, there have been no formal objections filed by the preservation commission.

Commission chairwoman Penny Clark said she has been in recent communication with the county on the issue of the lampposts and isn't prepared to accept plans to relocate them.

"They took parts of a local landmark, and we're going to be following up on that," she said.