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.