MCGULPIN'S POINT LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

As McGulpin Point Lighthouse stands over 700 feet from the shore and is surrounded by a dense forest, it can be hard to imagine how this structure served mariners passing between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. A climb up into the lantern room, however, reveals an expansive view of the straits, and a quick look at a map of the northern end of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula reveals that it has two tips, McGulpin Point and Old Mackinac Point, separated by just two miles. Waugoshance Lighthouse was completed in 1851 to mark the western entrance to the Straits of Mackinac, and Cheboygan Lighthouse went into service that same year to mark the eastern approach. Still, a light was needed to mark the narrowest part of the strait, and in 1865, the Lighthouse Board wrote, “A light-house at or near old Fort Mackinac is much needed to enable vessels to pass through the straits at night, and McGulpin's Point, about two miles distant, is designated by the engineer of the district as the most suitable location.” On July 28, 1866, Congress appropriated $20,000 for a lighthouse at McGulpin Point. A ten-acre site was selected for the lighthouse, but condemnation proceedings under the laws of the State of Michigan had to be instituted in 1867 to obtain title to the land. Work on the lighthouse began in 1868, and the light was first exhibited on June 18, 1869, after an early close of navigation shortened the previous working season and prevented the light from being finished in 1868. McGulpin Point Lighthouse was built with plans that were also used at Chambers Island in 1868, Eagle Harbor in 1871, White River in 1875, and Passage Island and Sand Island in 1882. Constructed in what has been called a “Norman Gothic” style, these lighthouses consist of a tower set diagonally into one corner of a one-and-a-half-story dwelling. Just above the dwelling’s roof line, the corners of the square tower are beveled off to create an octagonal tower. A third-and-a-half-order Fresnel lens was used at McGulpin Point to create a fixed white light at a focal plane of 102 feet above the lake – most of this height was due to the hill on which the lighthouse stands, as the tower itself is just forty feet tall. In 1875 and 1879, the Lighthouse Board requested $5,000 for a steam whistle at McGulpin Point, but in 1873, it had asked for $15,000 for a lighthouse and fog signal at “Mackinac or vicinity,” signaling some confusion as to where navigation aids near Mackinaw were needed. In 1888, the Lighthouse Board had apparently made up its mind, as it requested $25,000 for the removal of the lighthouse from McGulpin Point to Old Mackinac Point, noting that “it would have been better if McGulpin’s Point light had been located on the point 2 miles to the eastward, at Old Fort Mackinac, as it would then have been visible to vessels approaching from either direction.” On March 2, 1889 Congress authorized the construction of a lighthouse at Old Mackinac Point provided that McGulpin Point Lighthouse was discontinued. No funds for constructing the lighthouse were provided at this time, but $5,500 was given for a fog signal at Old Mackinac Point, and this went into operation on November 5, 1890. The Lighthouse Board objected to the discontinuance of McGulpin Point Lighthouse and recommended that having both lights would “best serve the interests of navigation.” When $20,000 was provided for Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse in 1891 no need to discontinue McGulpin Point Lighthouse was stipulated. After thirty-eight seasons of operation, McGulpin Point Lighthouse was discontinued on December 15, 1906, and Keeper Davenport was transferred to Mission Point Lighthouse. McGulpin Point’s lens was removed and stored temporarily at Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, and the property was sold to Sam J. Smith in July 1913 at auction for $1,425.  A replica lantern room, fabricated by Moran Iron Works in Onaway, was placed atop the lighthouse on April 23, 2009.

OLD MACKINAC POINT LIGHTHOUSE-MACKINAC CITY, MICHIGAN

During the summer of 1838, Lieutenant James T. Homans sailed 1,825 miles on Lake Huron and Lake Michigan inspecting existing lighthouses and selecting sites for newly authorized lighthouses. As part of his trip report, Homans recommended a light near Mackinaw to mark the narrowest part of the Straits of Mackinac :  A beacon-light, near the town of Mackinaw, has my strongest recommendation; the large amount of commerce passing through the straits near there, calls for the protection and safeguard such a light would render. The narrowest part of the strait is opposite this point; of course increases the dangers to the navigation just there, especially in the night. My own experience, in many voyages through them, has acquainted me with the difficulty of finding this narrow pass, or entering the harbor of Mackinaw in the dark, without some such guide as a beacon, properly located, would afford. In 1837, Lieutenant Pendergrast had selected a site for the construction of Waugoshance Lighthouse to mark the western approach to the straits, but this lighthouse wasn’t completed until 1851, the same year Cheboygan Lighthouse was built to help mark the straits’ southeastern entrance. The Lighthouse Board noted in 1865 that a lighthouse was needed near Fort Michilmackinac and selected McGuplin Point, a site two miles west of the fort, for its erection. McGulpin Point Lighthouse was placed in operation on June 18, 1869, but in 1888, the Board requested $25,000 to move the McGulpin Point Lighthouse to a site just east of Fort Michilmackinac, stating that there the light would be “visible to vessels approaching form either direction.” Construction of a light and fog signal at Old Point Mackinac was authorized by Congress on March 2, 1889, but only $5,500 was provided for a steam fog signal. A deed for the fog signal site was obtained in June 1890, and construction materials were landed on the point that same month. Work on the fog signal began on July 1 and was completed October 9, 1890. Installed in duplicate, the ten-inch steam whistle commenced operation on November 5, 1890. Congress provided $20,000 for building a lighthouse on Old Mackinac Point on March 3, 1891, and bids for supplying the metalwork and constructing the tower and dwelling were solicited. A contract for the metalwork was made on October 10, 1891, and the material was delivered to the lighthouse depot in Detroit on January 17, 1892, but no bids were received for erecting the tower and dwelling. This work was readvertised on March 19, 1892, and the lowest of six bids, $13,722 by John P. Schmitt of Detroit, was accepted. A fourth-order, revolving, Sautter, Lemonier & Co. Fresnel lens was installed in the lantern room and produced a red flash every ten seconds. The lens had ten flash panels and was revolved by a clockwork mechanism powered by a suspended weight that had to be wound up every three hours. The light was placed in operation on  October 25, 1892.  After the station was finished, the Lighthouse Board noted that the fog signal was too close to the dwelling and needed to be moved fifty feet east. As the fog signal building was just 7½ feet from the station’s eastern property line, this move required the acquisition of additional land. Mackinaw City owned the desired parcel, which it planned to use as a public park and refused to give it up. Condemnation proceedings were initiated in 1899, and three commissioners appointed to the case ruled that Mackinaw City should be awarded $400 for the land. Objections were filed in December 1900, and the court took until 1904 to rule that the $400 award was fair. Congress provided the compensatory $400 on March 3, 1905, and work on a new brick fog signal building began in May 1906. The boilers and whistles were transferred from the old building in time to be placed in operation in 1907. The old fog signal building was moved behind the new one and used for storage. The signature of Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse was changed from flashing red to flashing white on September 1, 1913, the same time an incandescent oil vapor lamp was substituted for one that burned kerosene. These changes increased the light’s candlepower from 1,100 to 26,000. In 1929, the illuminant was changed from oil vapor to electricity. A Cunningham air whistle was installed in the fog signal building in 1933, and in 1937 a raidobeacon was placed in commission at the station. Old Point Mackinac Lighthouse was purchased by the Mackinac Island State Park Commission in 1960 and incorporated into Michilmackinac State Park. After $70,000 in restoration work, the lighthouse was opened in 1972 as the focal point of Michilmackinac Maritime Park. Budget constraints and falling attendance led to the closure of the lighthouse in 1990. A fundraising effort was launched in 1996 to raise $2.2 million to restore the lighthouse and reopen it to the public. One key member of this effort was Jim Belisle, whose great-grandfather, John P. Schmitt, built the lighthouse. In 2004, the lighthouse was reopened as a “restoration in progress,” and the following year the station’s barn, which had been moved to a maintenance area in the 1960s, was returned to its rightful place behind the lighthouse. 

CHEBOYGAN RIVER FRONT RANGE LIGHTHOUSE

                                                                       Cheboygan Front Range Lighthouse in 1904
                                                                           Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

CHEBOYGAN CRIB LIGHTHOUSE-CHEBOYGAN, MICHIGAN

In 1871, a project was adopted to improve the harbor at Cheboygan by dredging the river to a width of 200 feet and a depth of not less than fourteen feet. By the end of June 1883, the portion of the river between the steamboat landing and the railroad dock had been dredged to the prescribed width and depth. From the railroad dock, a 110-foot-wide channel led lakeward for 1,600 feet followed by a ninety-foot-wide cut that extended out to the fifteen-foot curve in the lake. Subsequent work extended the width of the channel to 200 feet from the lake all the way to the state road bridge. Prior to these improvements, the water over the bar at the mouth of the river had a depth of just seven feet. To help mariners locate the entrance to the river, a light was established atop a forty-foot-square, offshore crib in line with the western bank of the river. The following description of this work comes from the 1885 Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board: An iron pierhead beacon was erected, by contract, on October 15, 1884, on an oak ring foundation, on the isolated crib at the end of the channel dredged into the mouth of this river. The beacon was then lined with beaded ceiling 2 1/2 inches wide put on in panels, a hole was drilled through the lantern-deck and a galvanized-iron smoke-pipe fitted to it for a chimney for the keeper's stove, an oil room was fitted up under it in the superstructure of the crib, a lightning rod was attached to its base and carried down into the water, two iron boat-cranes were erected on the crib, and iron steps were put up, and the beacon was thoroughly painted. On November 1, 1884, the station was lighted. The octagonal tower, which was originally painted brown, stands thirty-three feet tall and is similar to ones installed at Vermillion, Ohio in 1877 and Rochester, New York in 1881. A circular iron stairway provides access to the watchroom, where four circular windows with a diameter of fifteen inches help light the interior. The twenty-five-ton tower was built by the Russell Car Wheel Foundry of Detroit and was fastened to the underlying heavy oak timbers with two-inch bolts. In July 1902, a diver examined the foundation crib and found that the substructure was in good condition, but the superstructure was in urgent need of repairs. Built in 1881 in sixteen feet of water, the pier had been repaired multiple times and its outer angles and north face had been sheathed in quarter-inch plate-iron to protect it from ice. To reduce repairs in the future, the Lighthouse Board decided to replace the wooden superstructure with concrete and masonry. The lowest bid for the project was accepted, and the reconstruction work began on June 1, 1903. The upper portion of the crib was removed down to twelve inches below water level, and a brick and concrete pier, containing an oil cellar, a cellar beneath the dwelling, and a foundation for the iron tower, was completed in September. A fourth-order, Fresnel lens, manufactured in Paris by Barbier, Benard & Turenne, was originally used in the tower to produce a fixed red light that could be seen for up to thirteen miles. The red light was produced by a red glass chimney used on the oil lamp set inside the Fresnel lens. On June 12, 1925, the characteristic of the light was changed to a red flash every two seconds. With the close of the navigation season of 1931, the CO2 gas-operated fog-bell striker at Cheboygan Crib, Mich., in the eleventh district, complete its seventh season of service, having been installed on June 12, 1925. During this period the striker has never failed. It has never been removed or taken down for repairs. The only attendance which has been required during this period has been the furnishing of the gas supply and the cleaning and oiling of the piston twice a month, which is done by the keeper of Cheboygan Range Light Station, under whose supervision this bell operates. Vaseline with a little teleo oil mixed with it is used as the lubricant. The calcium chloride dryer is removed at the close of each season.During this period the bell has been struck by this automatic striker nearly ten million times, each operation requiring the functioning of the various parts of the mechanism. This is considered to be a remarkable record of a piece of comparatively delicate automatic apparatus. Cheboygan Crib Light was automated in the late 1920s and equipped with an acetylene light that required only an occasional visit. By the 1980s, the crib had developed a significant lean, and the Coast Guard determined that it would be less expensive to demolish rather than repair the structure. Ryba Marine Construction of Cheboygan was hired to remove the crib, and under an agreement with the Coast Guard, the iron tower was first barged to the mouth of the river where it was placed atop a new cement foundation at the foot of the pier in Gordon Turner Park. The foundation was built using a $40,000 grant Cheboygan received from the state.

                                                                                          Cheboygan Crib Lighthouse in 1904
                                                                                        Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

FORTY MILE POINT LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

                                                                                       Forty Mile Point Lighthouse in 1913
                                                                                  Photograph courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

Hammond Bay on Lake Huron is located roughly forty miles southeast of Mackinaw City, and in 1890, the Ligthhouse Board recommended Forty Mile Point, just east of the bay, as the site for a lighthouse. "Cheboygan and Presque Isle lighthouses are about 50 miles apart, " wrote the board, "with no aid to navigation between them. Considering the magnitude and value of the commerce of this vicinity the distance unmarked by a light is far too great. A light-station is needed about midway between the two. It should have not only a fog-signal, but also an efficient coast light."After repeated requests, Congress finally provided $25,000 for the station on August 18, 1894. Negotiations for the nearly twenty-seven-acre lighthouse parcel started in September, and the deed for the site was finalized the following June. Contracts to supply the fog signal boilers and metalwork for the station were made in 1895, and on July 5, 1896, the tender Amaranth landed a work party and constructions materials at the site. A 120-foot-long landing dock was built that was topped by a tramway whose rails would lead to the fog signal building and on to the lighthouse. A redbrick fog signal building, with a hipped roof covered in corrugated iron, was constructed near the shore to house ten-inch steam whistles. The lighthouse, also built of red brick, featured a twelve-foot-square tower centered on the lakeward face of a two-story duplex. Each of the mirror-image apartments had six rooms and an iron door that led into the tower, where a circular, cast-iron stairway provided access to the octagonal lantern room. The tower stands fifty-two feet tall and originally housed a fourth-order, L. Sautter lens. Equipped with six bull’s-eye panels, the lens revolved once every minute to produce white flashes spaced by ten seconds. The lighthouse was finished in October, and during November, the fog signals were piped and tested. After work wrapped up on November 23, 1896, a custodian was placed in charge of the station for the winter. On July 20, 1914, the illuminant was changed from oil to incandescent oil vapor, greatly increasing the intensity of the light. The characteristic of the light was altered on May 15, 1919 to occulting white, showing fifteen seconds of light followed by a fifteen-second eclipse through the introduction of a new Fresnel lens. In 1942, the light was electrified, and the period of the occultation was reduced from thirty seconds to ten seconds. A fixed, fourth-order Fresnel lens, manufactured by Henry-Lepaute, is used in the lighthouse today. The steam whistle was typically in operation about 225 hours per year and consumed roughly seven tons of coal. In 1905, the iron smokestacks for the boilers were replaced by a three-foot-square brick chimney. A modern compressed air plant, operated by diesel engines and linked to type “F” diaphones, replaced the steam boilers and whistles in 1931. The lighthouse was automated and de-staffed on January 1, 1969. After subsequent vandalism, the Coast Guard quickly moved to dispose of the property. All of the station, save 2.4 acres surrounding the lighthouse, was transferred to Presque Isle County on August 16, 1971 as part of a “legacy of parks program.” The deed to the lighthouse itself was awarded to the county on November 23, 1998, and since then the county and 40 Mile Point Lighthouse Society have restored the station’s structures.

PRESQUE ISLE LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

"OLD" PRESQUE ISLE LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

The name Presque Isle, French for “almost an island,” has been applied to a few Great Lakes peninsulas that are linked to the mainland by a narrow neck of land. Situated nineteen miles north of Alpena, Lake Huron’s Presque Isle helps form Presque Isle Harbor to the south and North Bay to the north.  In 1837, Lieutenant G.J. Pendergrast was appointed by the Board of Navy Commissioners to select lighthouse sites that would yield a systematic arrangement of lights throughout the Great Lakes. After inspecting Presque Isle Harbor that year, Pendergrast reported: This is an excellent harbor, and ought to be provided with a light, to show vessels how to enter it in a stormy night. All the steam boats bound up or down the lake stop here for wood. The light, if erected, ought to be a colored one. On July 7, 1838, Congress appropriated $5,000 for a lighthouse at Presque Isle. That same summer, Lieutenant James T. Homans selected a point of land on the northeast side of the entrance to Presque Isle Harbor as the site for the lighthouse and indicated the spot by driving a stake and marking nearby trees. Homans noted that the harbor, being the only “safe haven on the route between Fort Gratiot and the Straits of Michilimackinac, a distance of 240 miles,” was frequented for shelter during storms by all classes of vessels on Lake Huron. Jeremiah Moors, who built Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse in 1832, was awarded the contract for Presque Isle Lighthouse on August 26, 1839. Built to guide vessels into the harbor and also serve those passing up and down Lake Huron, the lighthouse has walls of brick and stone that taper from a thickness of three-feet, two inches at the ground, where the diameter of the tower is twelve feet, to one feet, four inches, at the lantern room, where the diameter is six feet. The tower stands thirty-one feet tall, and stone stairs lead up to the lantern room where a revolving array of eleven lamps set in fourteen-inch reflectors produced a flashing light. A one-and-a-half-story, brick dwelling, measuring thirty-five by twenty feet, was built just north of the tower, and on September 23, 1840, Henry Woolsey was appointed the first keeper of Presque Isle Lighthouse at an annual salary of $350. Lemuel Crawford, an interim keeper, had kept the light from August 27, 1840 until Woolsey arrived at the lighthouse. A fourth-order Fresnel was installed atop the tower in 1857, changing the characteristic of the light to fixed white. In 1867, the Lighthouse Board noted that a new dwelling would be built at Presque Isle, but then the following year, it announced a change of plans.  After due consideration of the subject, it was determined to recommend the removal of this light to a site about one mile north of the present one, so as to make it answer the purposes of a much needed coast light, instead of being a mere harbor light as it now is. Owing to the character of the entrance to the harbor, the light is of little value to guide vessels into it. If the removal of the light is made as contemplated, its power must be increased, which involves the necessity for an additional appropriation, which should also provide for the establishment of range lights to guide into the harbor. Range lights to better mark the course vessels needed to follow to safely enter the harbor were completed in August 1870, and the new coastal light went into service on the opening of navigation in 1871. No longer needed, the old Presque Isle Lighthouse was discontinued and its lantern room and lens removed for use elsewhere. Patrick Garrity, Sr., the last keeper of the lighthouse, moved his wife and five children just up the road to take charge of the new Presque Isle Lighthouse. The abandoned lighthouse was retained by the government for nearly three  decades before being sold at public auction in 1897 to Edward O. Avery of Alpena.

STURGEON POINT LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

                                                                                                            Sturgeon Point lighthouse in 1904
                                                                                                      Photograph courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

A lighthouse was built on Tawas Point near the northern entrance of Saginaw Bay, in 1857, and one was erected on Thunder Bay Island in 1832, but these lights were unable to fully illuminate the roughly fifty-five-mile gap between them. In 1866, the Lighthouse Board proposed that a lighthouse be erected near the midpoint of this gap. Congress appropriated the requested $15,000 on March 2, 1867, and efforts began to secure a title to the desired parcel on Sturgeon Point. Plans for the lighthouse were approved July 6, 1868, and after a deed for just over sixty acres on the point was formalized on September 22, 1868, work commenced the following spring. Excavation for the lighthouse was made at a location roughly 100 feet from the shoreline, and a limestone block foundation, which is seven-and-a-half feet high and extends four feet above the surface of the ground, was laid for a conical tower with attached keeper’s dwelling. The circular brick tower gently tapers from a diameter of sixteen feet at its base to ten feet at the lantern room gallery, while its walls decrease from a thickness of four-and-a-half feet to eighteen inches over the same distance. The tower stands seventy-feet, nine inches tall, and its decagonal, cast-iron lantern room, which came from a lighthouse in Oswego, New York, is reached by a spiral stairway with three landings that winds up the tower. Four windows, one facing each of the cardinal points of a compass, provide light for the tower’s interior. A third-and-a-half-order, Henry-Lepaute Fresnel lens was mounted atop a cast-iron pedestal in the lantern room to produce a fixed white light that could be seen for up to fifteen miles. An eleven-foot-long covered passageway connects the tower to the two-story, brick dwelling, which had eight rooms for the keeper and his family. An iron door was installed at the entrance to the tower from the passageway to prevent fire from spreading between the tower and dwelling, both of which were painted white. The lighthouse was completed in early November 1870, and its light was scheduled to be exhibited that month. However, Perley Silverthorn, the first keeper, was late in arriving to the lighthouse, and it was decided to postpone the inaugural lighting until the opening of navigation the following spring. The tower’s Fresnel lens was somehow damaged in 1887. A news lens was installed in the tower, and the old lens was shipped to the general lighthouse depot on Staten Island for repair. Whether or not the original third-and-a-half-order, Henry-Lepaute lens was ever returned to the lighthouse, it is known that a lens of that description was in the lantern room in 1910 and remains there today. In 1893, a brick-lined circular iron oil house, with a capacity of seventy-two, five-gallon oil cans was built 100 feet south of the lighthouse. Also that year, a brick cistern was added beneath the dwelling’s living room, and the conductor pipes from the residence were redirected to feed the cistern. On April 15, 1913, the characteristic of the light was changed from fixed white to a white flash every three seconds through the introduction of an automated acetylene lighting apparatus. Louis Cardy was hired as keeper of the lighthouse in 1882, and he served for thirty-two years until his passing in November 1913 at the age of eighty-one. With the light now automated, a new keeper was not appointed. Rather, the coastguardsmen at the adjacent station were assigned to keep an eye on the light. Sturgeon Point Lighthouse had fallen into serious disrepair by the time the Alcona Historical Society obtained a lease on the property in 1982. The station’s buildings were restored as part of a three-year volunteer project, and they are now run as a maritime museum and historical site.