Port Washington Lighthouse in 1893
Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard
Congress appropriated $3,500 for a lighthouse at Port Washington in 1848, and that October a parcel of land on the north bluff overlooking Lake Michigan was purchased from Henry Genevieve Allen for $200. Built in 1849, the first Port Washington Lighthouse consisted of a conical brick tower that tapered from a diameter of twelve feet at its base to six feet seven inches at its octagonal lantern room, which originally housed five lamps set in fourteen-inch reflectors. The tower had a height of thirty-two feet, base to ventilator ball, but the bluff gave it a focal plane of 109 feet. A rectangular, one-and-a-half-story brick dwelling was located near the tower, and Cyrus B. Worth was employed as the first keeper. The total cost for the lighthouse and keeper’s dwelling was $3,380.60. After the Lighthouse Board was established in 1852, the system of lamps and reflectors, used in most of the lighthouses in the United States at that time, was replaced by the more efficient Fresnel lens. A sixth-order Fresnel lens was installed in the lantern room at Port Washington in 1856. Like many lighthouses built under contract for the lowest possible cost while Stephen Pleasonton was in charge of the country’s lighthouses, the first Port Washington Lighthouse had a rather short life. In 1859 – 60, the lighthouse was “rebuilt.” While material from the first lighthouse was reused, the new lighthouse certainly had a different design. Instead of being detached from the dwelling, the new tower was placed atop the southern gable of the new two-story keeper’s dwelling, which was built of cream city brick. To support the lantern, eight-inch-square beams rose from the attic as part of a square tower, whose weight was supported by bearing walls in the first and second floors of the dwelling and eight-inch-square beams in the basement that stood atop three brick piers. The lantern room was accessible via a stairway in the southwest corner of the first floor and a series of three ladders that ran from the second floor to the attic, the attic to the watchroom, and the watchroom to the lantern. The sixth-order lens from the first tower was used in the lantern room of the new lighthouse until 1870, when a more powerful fourth-order Fresnel lens was installed. In 1888, piers were completed in the harbor, and in 1889 a square, pyramidal tower was erected on the north pier to guide mariners into the anchorage at Port Washington. In 1894, a brick oil house was constructed for storing the more-volatile kerosene that was being used in the lights. A new pump for the station’s well was also supplied that year, and a cement sidewalk was laid between the dwelling and the woodshed. A 225-foot-long fence with steel posts, pickets, uprights, a foot gate, and a carriage gate was put in place in 1899, and six loads of gravel were placed on the road through the lot to the barn. In 1903, it was decided that the pierhead light was sufficient for marking Port Washington, and on October 31st of that year, the 1860 Port Washington Lighthouse was discontinued. The pierhead light was electrified in 1924, eliminating the need for keepers. The lantern room and tower were removed from atop the dwelling at this time, and the original purpose of the brick structure slowly started to be forgotten. After the breakwater light was automated in 1976, Coast Guardsmen continued to live in the dwelling until the station at Port Washington was eliminated in 1992. During the summer of 2000, Georges Calteux, minister of sites and monuments for Luxembourg, toured the museum during a visit to Ozaukee County, which is home to many residents with Luxembourg roots. Inspired by the society’s efforts to restore the lighthouse, Calteux offered to have a replica tower and lantern room built in appreciation for the U.S. servicemen who liberated Luxembourg during World War II. This generous gesture got the society scrambling to raise money, solicit volunteers, and draw up plans for a thorough restoration of the lighthouse. Fulfilling his promise, Calteux had the replica lantern and tower built in Luxembourg and then delivered to Port Washington in March of 2002. On October 7, 2007, a fourth-order Fresnel lens custom made by Artworks Florida was installed in the lantern room as the final piece in the restoration of the 1860 Port Washington Lighthouse.
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