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.
No comments:
Post a Comment