Located in the northeast corner of Lake Michigan are two expansive bays: Grand Traverse Bay and Little Traverse Bay. Grand Traverse Lighthouse commenced operation in 1852 to mark the entrance to Grand Traverse Bay, but Little Traverse Bay remained without a lighthouse for several more years. On the north shore of Little Traverse Bay, Harbor Point extends out into the bay for nearly a mile, forming a fine natural harbor at Harbor Springs. On March 13,1871 the Michigan Legislature passed a resolution asking Congress for an appropriation for a lighthouse and fog bell for Little Traverse Bay. The U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce asked the Lighthouse Board to investigate the necessity of the lighthouse, and the district's engineer, Orlando M. Poe, was tasked with making a formal report. A report which supported the need for such lighthouse. It took over a decade, but Congress finally appropriated $15,000 for the lighthouse on August 7, 1882. After title to the desired parcel on Harbor Point was acquired, materials and workers were landed at the site on May 14, 1884. By the end of June, the twenty-inch-thick stone foundation walls were in place, the first-floor joists were laid, and the brickwork had been carried up to a height of two feet. The red-brick lighthouse, consisting of an eight-and-a-half-foot-square tower attached to the southern end of a one-and-half-story dwelling, was completed on September 18, and the light was exhibited for the first time on September 25, 1884. A fourth-order L. Sautter, Lemonier & Co. Fresnel lens, installed in the tower’s decagonal, cast-iron lantern room, was used to beam forth a fixed red light at a focal plane of forty-one feet above the bay. In 1887, a forty-five-foot-deep, two-inch drive well was sunk near the dwelling to provide water via a hand pump. Four years later, the station was connected to the city’s main, which provided a steady supply of water for domestic purposes and for protection against fire. A summer kitchen was added to the lighthouse in 1894. Though a fog bell was mentioned in the original plans for the station, only a light was available to mariners until 1896, when a two-story, square, pyramidal, fog-bell tower, resting atop five brick piers, was erected. The lower portion of the tower was enclosed, and the 1,800-pound bell was hung in the open upper portion. Starting on June 1, 1896, the bell was struck a double blow every thirty seconds when needed. Prior to being installed at Little Traverse Lighthouse, the bell and striking mechanism had been used at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Accretion gradually built up Harbor Point until the lighthouse was situated a significant distance from the entrance to the harbor. On July 28, 1959, the commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District held a public hearing to receive feedback on the plan to discontinue Little Traverse Lighthouse and its fog bell and establish an automated light on a skeletal tower near the extremity of the point. When no adverse comments were received, the Coast Guard requested that the General Services Administration exchange the lighthouse property for a fifty-foot-square parcel owned by the Harbor Point Association, who had agreed to pay for the difference in property value in cash. After the transaction was completed, a forty-one-foot-tall skeletal tower was erected on the point in 1963 to display an automated flashing green light. As Harbor Point remains an exclusive gated community controlled by the Harbor Point Association, the best public views of the lighthouse are from the water since access is not granted to the general public.
Little Traverse Lighthouse with bell tower.
Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard
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