WIND POINT LIGHTHOUSE-WISCONSIN

 

                                                                                         Wind Point lighthouse 1884

                                                                                            Aerial view of the station in 1947
                                                                                   Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard

In 1870, the Lighthouse Board petitioned Congress for $40,000 to construct a lighthouse and fog signal on Racine Point, located three-and-a-half miles north of Racine and eighteen miles south of Milwaukee. A lighthouse had been established at Racine in 1835, but this light was shut out by Racine Point for vessels approaching Racine from the north. The Lighthouse Board felt that a lighthouse on Racine Point could help mariners avoid Racine Reef, which lies well offshore, and would allow the light at Racine to be discontinued. The Lighthouse Board repeated its request each year until Congress finally appropriated $40,000 in 1878 for building a lake-coast lighthouse and fog signal on Racine Point. Once the structures were completed, the Lighthouse Service records started referring to the station as Wind Point instead of Racine Point. Wind Point was supposedly named after a tall, windblown tree on the point that was a familiar landmark for mariners on Lake Michigan. The tree was appropriately replaced by a tall lighthouse that proved to be even more beneficial to mariners. In May of 1879, a lot on Wind Point measuring 295 by 292.5 feet was purchased for $1,000 along with a 33 by 628 foot right-of-way to the public highway. Also that year plans for the station were submitted and approved, and duplicate fog whistles were ordered. Built of brick with an inner and outer wall, Wind Point Lighthouse gradually tapers from a diameter of twenty-two feet at its base to twelve feet eight inches at its lantern. The tower stands atop a ten-foot-deep stone foundation and measures 110 feet three inches from its base to the ventilator ball atop its lantern room. The tower features two distinctive architectural embellishments found in many of the tall towers on the Great Lakes: masonry gallery support corbels and arch-topped windows. A spiral cast-iron staircase, with 144 steps and five landings, winds up the inside of the tower to the watchroom and lantern room, which are each encircled by a gallery. The ten-sided lantern room originally housed a  third-order Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier & Fenestre in Paris, France. This lens, which is now on display at the lighthouse, has twelve flash panels and revolved once in six minutes to produce a six-second flash every thirty seconds. The lens rested atop sixteen ball bearings and was rotated by a clockwork mechanism powered by a weight suspended in a drop tube located between the inner and outer walls of the tower. The tower is attached via a twenty-two-foot-long covered way to the brick keepers’ dwelling. Besides, the lighthouse, the station was also originally equipped with ten-inch steam fog whistles in duplicate. The light and fog signal were placed in operation on November 15, 1880. A circular iron oil house was erected on the station grounds in 1894 to store the volatile kerosene oil used for the light. The current concrete oil house was built in 1910. A brick fog signal building was constructed in 1900 to house duplicate, compressed-air sirens. Two years later, two automatic Brown sirens, with copper trumpets were installed, and one of the two old wooden fog signal buildings was moved to the southwest part of the lot and converted into a woodshed. The characteristic of the fog signal was changed in 1906 from a three-second blast separated by twenty-seven seconds of silence, to a three-second blast separated by fifty-seven seconds of silence. On December 5, 1923, Wind Point Lighthouse became just the second light on the Great Lakes to be electrified when a 300-watt light bulb was placed inside the Fresnel lens. The lens was replaced with a DCB-24 aerobeacon in 1964, when the station was automated and de-staffed. The lens was given to the Racine Historical Museum (now the Racine Heritage Museum), the fog signal was discontinued, and the station buildings were leased to the Village of Wind Point. in 2007, the DCB-24R aerobeacon failed and was replaced by a VRB-25 lens. This change led to complaints by boaters in the area who felt the new light was too weak. Letters were sent to the Coast Guard by the City of Racine Harbor Commission, the State of Wisconsin Waterways Commission, the Racine County Sheriff’s Department, and the Village of Wind Point, asking that the intensity of the light be increased and that the false flashes produced by the new beacon be eliminated. After nearly three years of dialogue, the Coast Guard addressed the complaints by replacing the beacons thirty-five-watt bulb with a 100-watt bulb and adding screens to the western windows in the lantern room to eliminate the extra flashes.