SAND POINT LIGHTHOUSE-ESCANABA, MICHIGAN

Located on Little Bay de Noc in the northwest corner of Lake Michigan, Escanaba was founded in 1862 in conjunction with the building of a railroad line linking the iron ore mines in Negaunee to Little Bay de Noc. The railroad was completed in 1865 along with a gravity-fed dock for loading the ore onto ships.   Anticipating the significance of the port at Escanaba, Congress appropriated $5,000 for a “beacon light on Sand Point” in Escanaba on July 2, 1864. A suitable site for the lighthouse was selected, but the owner of the land was unable to produce a clear title to the property, a prerequisite before construction could start. This delay gave the Lighthouse Board time to reconsider its plans for the lighthouse, and in its 1866 report it wrote: the necessity for this light is considered one of great urgency, marking, as it does, the approach to the harbor of Escanaba, a place of growing commercial importance and already one of the main shipping ports of the Lake Superior iron ore. It is recommended that the light be built in a more substantial manner than was anticipated when the appropriation was made, and with this view an estimate of an additional appropriation (seven thousand dollars) is submitted. Congress provided an additional $9,000 for the lighthouse on March 2, 1867, and with a title to the property recently obtained, work on the lighthouse was carried out during the 1867 season. The lighthouse consists of a rectangular, one-and-a-half-story keeper’s dwelling, built with yellow brick, with a square tower centered on its western end. A fourth-order Fresnel lens installed in the tower’s lantern room initially displayed a fixed white light at a focal plane of forty-four feet above the surrounding water.  John Terry was appointed  first keeper of Sand Point Lighthouse, but he passed away in April 1868, and it was actually Mary Terry, his wife, who lit the light for the first time on May 13, 1868. As she had no children, Mary kept the light alone until 1886, when she met a tragic end. Metal handrails were added to the tower’s stairs in 1901, the same year a brick oil house was built on the station’s grounds. The intensity of Sand Point Light was increased from 130 to 500 candlepower on July 1, 1913, when the illuminant was changed to electricity.  In the 1920s, the Bureau of Lighthouses requested around $70,000 to improve the light and fog signal at Escanaba, noting that the ports at Escanaba and Gladstone were some of the most important on Lake Michigan.  The planned improvements were described as follows:  It is proposed to erect a light on a pile foundation, with concrete or steel-sheet superstructure, located near the outer angle of the point, and to erect an inclosed steel-plated tower; run an electric transmission cable from shore, move the present apparatus out to this tower, and illuminate with electricity; install electric-driven air compressors, and modern fog signal in tower operated by remote control from shore, improve the present keeper’s dwelling, and construct a new dwelling for the assistant keeper. The request for funds were repeated numerous times, but work on the structure did not begin until August 5, 1938. The work was done by the Ludke Construction Company, and the Annual Report of the Lake Carriers’ Association gave the following description of the new light:

This light is located in 8 feet of water on the sandy shoal called Sand Point in Green Bay and consists of a circular black cylinder of interlocking steel sheet piling filled with stone and capped with a slab of concrete. On the pier thus provided is erected a square steel tower painted white. The tower is surmounted by a 275 m.m. lantern equipped with an electric light showing an occulting white light, 2 seconds eclipse, 4 seconds in duration, of 2,700 c.p. The base of the tower houses a motor-driven compressor supplying air to the diaphragm horn fog signal which sounds a blast of 2 seconds duration every 20 seconds. The signals are controlled by submarine cable from shore. The old lighthouse was greatly modified to provide improved housing. The lantern room and top ten feet of the tower were removed along with the spiral staircase. The roof of the dwelling was raised four feet to provide space for three bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. Additional windows were cut in the outer walls, and the configuration of the interior walls was modified. The Coast Guard later added aluminum siding to the exterior, further hiding any evidence that the structure had once been a lighthouse. When the Coast Guard announced its plans to abandon and possible raze the dwelling in 1985, the Delta County Historical Society stepped in to save one of the most historic buildings in the area. Using a copy of the original plans, the society began work to restore the original appearance of the lighthouse. The tower was rebuilt, the walls in the upper story were lowered, and a cast-iron lantern room was obtained from Poverty Island Lighthouse. To complete the restoration, a fourth-order Fresnel lens used in the 1927 Menominee Pier Light was installed in the tower. The interior rooms have been furnished to resemble the period when Lewis Rose served as keeper. After five years of restorative work, the lighthouse opened to the public in 1990. Ownership of the lighthouse was transferred to the society in 1998. 

Escanaba Light that replaced Sand Point Lighthouse
Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard