WC-LIGHTHOUSES: FT. GRATIOT LIGHTHOUSE-SARNIA, MICHIGAN

Congress appropriated $8,000 on March 2, 1829 for a new lighthouse, and a $4,445 contract for a tower and dwelling was awarded to Lucius Lyon, who later served as one of Michigan’s first senators. Located north of the original tower, this, the second Fort Gratiot Lighthouse was built of brick and stood sixty-nine feet tall. The tower and the keeper's dwelling were completed in the late winter of 1829. The total cost of the new structures came to $5,001.48, and the remainder of the appropriation was carried to the surplus fund. In 1857, a fourth-order Frensel lens, which produced a fixed white light, was installed in Fort Gratiot Lighthouse, replacing eight lamps and fifteen-inch reflectors that had been used in the tower for several years. Due to the numerous lights exhibited at nearby railway depots and other buildings, the fixed lens at Fort Gratiot was swapped in 1867 for the revolving lens in use at Point aux Barques Lighthouse. The third-order Fresnel lens installed in 1867 was manufactured by Henry Lepaute and was equipped with external flash panels that revolved to produce a fixed light varied by flashes. A flue for the descending weight that powered the revolving mechanism for the lens had to be added to the lighthouse. Another improvement to the lighthouse had been carried out in 1862, when an addition was made to the top of the tower to increase the height of the light by roughly twenty feet. Following an appropriation on March 3, 1871, an eight-inch steam fog whistle was added to the station. The fog signal was finished in time to be of service during the thick and smoky conditions that resulted from the Port Huron Fire, Peshtigo Fire, and Great Chicago Fire, all of which broke out on October 8, 1871. The dwelling and fog signals were connected to the city water main in 1896, and in 1898, sewer pipes were laid from the dwelling to the river. A new brick fog signal building, measuring twenty-two by forty feet, was finished in July 1901. After a spate of accidents at the head of St. Clair River, the Lighthouse Service decided in 1911 to also sound the fog signal at Fort Gratiot whenever fog existed in the river and Lake Huron was clear. Previous to this change, vessels had no means of anticipating fog in the river until they were already fighting its rapid current. On September 25, 1914, a different fog signal characteristic of a five-second blast every minute was introduced to indicate when there was fog on the river. An auxiliary air diaphone fog signal was installed at the station on May 10, 1920 to sound the five-second blast indicating foggy conditions on the river, while the steam whistle, which was changed from an eight-inch whistle to a six-inch whistle in 1915, continued to sound the regular three-second blast every twenty seconds when it was foggy on Lake Huron. In 1927, it was decided that the steam fog would only be sounded when there was fog on the lake and the river was clear, while the air diaphone would sound when there was fog on the river, regardless of conditions on the lake. The intensity of the light emitted by Fort Gratiot Lighthouse was increased on September 13, 1912, by changing the illuminant from oil to incandescent oil vapor, and again on March 31, 1927, when the light was electrified. In 2011 a massive restoration effort replaced 35,000 bricks on the outer shell of the tower. The lighthouse is the oldest in Michigan, and the second oldest on the Great Lakes.