WHITEFISH POINT LIGHTHOUSE-WHITEFISH POINT, MICHIGAN

A contract for an iron-pile lighthouse for Whitefish Point was entered into in 1860, and this tower was finished in the spring of 1861, along with similar ones built at Manitou Island on Lake Superior and Detour Point on Lake Huron. The new lighthouse stands seventy-eight feet tall and consists of four levels of bracing around a central, cylindrical shaft that runs from the top of the first level to the watchroom, situated just below the lantern room. The braces of the first level are vertical and placed at the corners of a twenty-six-foot square, while the upper three levels slope inward. The second floor of a new dwelling attaches to the tower via a covered passage. A spiral staircase inside the central shaft provides access to the decagonal watchroom and lantern room, each of which are encircled by a gallery.  The characteristic of the light at Whitefish Point was changed on June 15, 1893 from fixed white to fixed white varied every twenty seconds by a red flash, through the installation of flash panels that revolved around the lens. A circular iron oil house was added to the station in 1893, and the color of the tower was changed from brown to white in 1895 in order to serve as a more prominent daymark. At the opening of navigation in 1896, the characteristic of the light was changed to a white flash every five seconds. On October 12, 1900, the light’s characteristic was changed to a white flash every ten seconds and then to a white light that was alternately on one second and off one second on May 2, 1919. The intensity of the light was increased on September 5, 1913 by changing the illuminant from oil to incandescent oil vapor. The Lighthouse Service was absorbed into the Coast Guard in 1939. The Coast Guard closed its lifeboat station at Whitefish Point in 1951 and removed the remainder of its personnel from the site in 1970, following the automation of the lighthouse. In 1983, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) leased the station from the Coast Guard.

CRISP POINT LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

 Crisps Point Lifesaving Station was originally known as Station #10, but it later took the name of Christopher Crisp, its second keeper, who served there from 1878 to 1890. As happens with a lot of places named after a person, the name has morphed over time, changing from Crisp’s Point and Crisps Point to the now more common Crisp Point. In 1896, the Lighthouse Board requested $18,000 for a light and fog signal at Crisps Point using the following language: This is a dangerous point for vessels bound down the lake in thick weather. These vessels all try to make Whitefish Point, but a slight variation in their course from the nearest point of departure will run them ashore near Crisps Point. Several wrecks have occurred here. The Board repeated its request each year until Congress appropriated $18,000 for the station on June 28, 1902. Crisp Point Lighthouse is a circular, brick lighthouse that stands fifty-eight feet tall and gracefully tapers from a diameter of fourteen feet at its base to nine feet before flaring out to support a gallery that encircles the tower’s octagonal lantern room. A redbrick, two-story duplex was built sixty feet west of the tower for the head keeper and his first assistant, and a small, one-room, ten-and-a-half by sixteen-foot house, painted maroon, was built for the second assistant. A rectangular redbrick building was erected on the shore 100 feet north of the tower for a ten-inch steam whistle. Besides the barn and boathouse, other outbuildings included a brick privy and brick oil house. After receiving word from Whitefish Point, Keeper Smith and his assistants exhibited the fixed red light from the station’s fourth-order, Sautter, Lemonnier & Cie. Fresnel lens for the first time on the night of May 5, 1904. In 1905, the machinery for a second fog-signal plant was installed, and a ten-inch chime whistle replaced the original standard whistle so the tone at Crisp Point could be distinguished from that at Whitefish Point. At the same time, a brick service room was built and connected to the tower by a passageway, and 750 feet of cement walks were laid. In 1907, a landing crib, twelve feet wide and 132 feet long, was built on the west side of the boathouse, filled with stone, and decked over.  After two years of planning, Crisp Point Lighthouse was electrified and automated in 1941. In addition, an electrically lighted bell buoy of 1,475 candlepower was established 10 degrees from Crisp Point near where steamer’s changed their course and the fog signal was discontinued, before the last keepers were withdrawn. In 1965, the Coast Guard razed all the buildings at Crisp Point save the lighthouse and its attached service room. The Coast Guard decommissioned the lighthouse after the 1992 season. In 2012, Crisp Point Light Historical Society received a permit from the Coast Guard to operate the light as a private aid to navigation. A 300mm lens was installed in the lantern room on November 23, 2012 and will be active each year between May 1st and November 1st.

GRAND MARAIS LIGHTHOUSE-GRAND MARAIS, MICHIGAN

AU SABLE LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

Two of the early lighthouses established on Lake Superior were at Whitefish Point in 1849 and on the northern end of Grand Island in 1856. In 1867, the Lighthouse Board lamented that the eighty miles between these two lights remained unmarked and requested $40,000 for a lighthouse to rectify this situation. The Lighthouse Board repeated its requested annually, and then in 1871, it added that the lighthouse was " more needed than any other light in the district." This seems to have prompted Congress to act, as the following year $40,000 was appropriated for "a light between White Fish Point and Grand Island Harbor." The Lighthouse Board selected Big Sable Point, named for the towering nearby sand dunes, as the site for the lighthouse, and work at the point commenced in July 1873. A circular brick tower was built atop a cut-stone base with cut-stone lintels and sills. The eighty-six-foot-tall tower tapers from a diameter of sixteen-and-a-half feet at its base to twelve feet, eight inches at the circular gallery that is supported by sixteen cast-iron corbels. A spiral cast-iron stairway leads to the top of the tower where arched windows provide light for the watchroom. A third-order, L. Sautter & Cie. Fresnel lens was installed in the tower’s lantern room to produce a fixed white light, which thanks to the lofty bluff on which the lighthouse stands, has a focal plane of 107 feet. For the convenience of the keepers, a twelve-and-a-half-foot-long passage was built to link the base of the tower to the two-story dwelling. While the tower was whitewashed, the redbrick dwelling was left unpainted. By the end of June 1874, work at the station was finished except for plastering, outside whitewashing, and installing the Fresnel lens. After this work was finished, Keeper Casper Kuhn displayed the light for the first time on the night of August 19, 1874. While the light was appreciated by mariners, it wasn’t much assistance in thick weather. In 1892, the Lighthouse Board made the following plea for a fog signal at Big Sable:  A steam fog signal is required to complete the satisfactory equipment of the station. It is estimated that it can be established at a cost not exceeding $5,500, and it is recommended that an appropriation of this amount be made therefor." The funds were finally provided on June 11, 1896, and the necessary boilers and machinery were delivered to the Detroit lighthouse depot that September. A working party and construction material were landed at Big Sable in the spring of 1897, and a twenty-two by forty-foot, redbrick fog signal building was completed in June. To provide water for the steam ten-inch steam whistle, a crib, fitted with a well box, was built and sunk in Lake Superior. The fog signal was placed in operation on September 1, 1897 and was typically in operation about 150 hours each year, but in 1907 it sounded for 525 hours while consuming thirty tons of coal. Up until 1910, when control of the country’s lighthouses passed from the Lighthouse Board to the Bureau of Lighthouses, the lighthouse was known as Big Sable Lighthouse, but for some reason, the Bureau of Lighthouses started using the name Au Sable Lighthouse. While some say this was to prevent confusion with Big Sable Lighthouse on Lake Michigan, the change to Au Sable Lighthouse gave the station the same name as another light on Lake Huron. The characteristic of the light was changed from fixed white to a group of two white flashes every fifteen seconds in 1944. Au Sable Lighthouse was automated in 1958, and its keepers withdrawn. 

PERRY'S VICTORY MEMORIAL LIGHTHOUSE-SOUTH BASS ISLAND, OHIO

GRAND ISLAND EAST CHANNEL LIGHTHOUSE-GRAND ISLAND, MICHIGAN

MUNISING RANGE LIGHTHOUSE-MUNISING, MICHIGAN

                              The last 5 photographs shows how the boat traffic uses the range lights from boat interception
                                                  into proper navigation into Munising's South Bay from Lake Superior.