Eagle Harbor Rear Range Light
Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard
On March 3, 1875, Congress appropriated $8,000 for range lights to mark the entrance channel being constructed at Eagle Harbor. Roughly three acres of land were acquired on the southern side of the harbor in 1875, and the range lights were built during the 1877 season. The rear light, which had a focal plane of twenty-nine feet above the harbor and was situated 1,000 feet south of the front light, was exhibited from a rectangular tower mounted atop the lake-facing gable of a six-room, one-and-a-half-story keeper’s dwelling. Located near the shore, the front light was exhibited from a window atop a twenty-four-foot-tall wooden tower that was square in it slower half and octagonal in its upper half. A smaller window was situated on the landward side of the front tower so the keeper could see if the light was burning from the comfort of the dwelling. The structures built for the Eagle Harbor Range Lights resembled those employed on the Great Lakes at Copper Harbor, Grand Island harbor, Portage River, Baileys Harbor, and Presque Isle. After the range lights were placed in operation on September 20, 1877, mariners could use Eagle Harbor Lighthouse to locate the harbor and then align the range lights one above the other to pass through the reef at its entrance. In 1884, the keeper's dwelling was raised two feet, and a cellar was built beneath it. In 1901, the dwelling was raised an additional two feet, the foundation wall was built up by that amount, and a concrete floor was laid in the cellar. An isolated, fire-proof oil house was added to the station in 1909. Old tin tubular lanterns were used in the range lights until lens lanterns were installed in 1894. Eagle Harbor Range was discontinued on June 30, 1912. Eagle Harbor Range Lights were reestablished in 1939, with a white, octagonal tower displaying the front light and the rear tower being shown from a post. The octagonal tower was likely the range’s original front tower, but it was replaced in 1962 by a pole light, and what happened to it after that is unknown.
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