WISCONSIN POINT (SUPERIOR ENTRY BREAKWATER) LIGHTHOUSE-SUPERIOR, WISCONSIN

                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                          Superior Entry Lighthouse with fog trumpets in 1915
                                                                                 (Photograph courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard)

Superior Bay is a natural harbor in the northwest corner of Lake Superior that is fed by the St. Louis River and empties into the lake through a natural opening, known as Superior Entry, which is bounded by Minnesota Point and Wisconsin Point. Together, these two points create the longest freshwater sandbar in the world. On June 30, 1906, Congress appropriated $20,000 for range lights to mark the new south pier, after the old ones were washed away in 1905. But, after this appropriation, the Superior Entry project was expanded to include not only new parallel piers but also two converging breakwaters to protect the entrance. The Lighthouse Board requested an additional $25,000 to cover a light and fog signal on the southern breakwater, and three non-attended acetylene beacons to mark the piers and northern breakwater. Congress provided this amount on March 4, 1911, and work on the new lighthouse commenced that fall. The Superior Entry Lighthouse went into commission on October 10, 1912 at the outer end of the southern breakwater. This two-story structure is oval in plan and situated on a concrete pier that rises eleven and a half feet above the concrete breakwater. The circular tower rises from the outer end of the lighthouse, and is surmounted by a cast-iron deck and fourth-order helical bar lantern, from which an occulting white light was exhibited by a fourth-order, Sautter, Lemonier, & Cie. Drum lens at a focal plane of seventy feet. A clockwork mechanism, powered by a seventy-five pound weight that was suspended in a drop tube and had to be wound up every four hours, revolved a screen inside the lens to produce the light’s characteristic: five seconds of light, followed by five seconds of eclipse. The concrete pier underneath the lighthouse provided storage for oil, paints, gasoline, and water. The first story of the lighthouse, also of concrete, housed the twenty-two horsepower air compressors and tanks, a heating plant, a bathroom, and cold storage room. The lighthouse’s second story, made of wood, contained a kitchen, living room, three bedrooms, and a bathroom. An additional assistant was authorized for the station, after a fourth light besides the main light on the south breakwater was established at Superior Entry. These four lights were a fifty-foot skeletal tower on the north breakwater, a twenty-five foot skeletal tower on the north pier, a twenty-five foot skeletal tower on the south pier, and a light on the inner end of the south pier. A radio beacon was established at Superior Entry in 1938. The station was automated in 1970, when a DCB aerobeacon was installed in the lantern room. On May 1, 2013, the General Services Administration announced that the Wisconsin Point Lighthouse was excess to the needs of the Coast Guard and was “being made available at no cost to eligible entities defined as federal agencies, state and local agencies, and other non-profit, historic, or community purposes.

SPLIT ROCK LIGHTHOUSE-MINNESOTA

During the early-morning hours of November 28, 1905, the 478-foot William Edenborn was towing the 436-foot barge Madeira along the western shore of Lake Superior, in winds of seventy to eighty miles per hour, when the towline parted. The Madeira crashed onto the craggy shores of Gold Island, near present-day Split Rock Lighthouse, and nine of its crew of ten made it safely ashore. The Edenborn was driven into the mouth of Split Rock River, a few miles to the south, where she broke in two and lost one of her crewmembers. Twenty-nine vessels were destroyed or damaged and thirty-six seamen lost their lives in the storm, which was named Mataffa after a freighter that wrecked near Duluth that day. In January 1907, J.H. Sheadle, vice president of The Lake Carriers' Association, wrote the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, urging the construction of a lighthouse near Split Rock. "A lighthouse of the second order, with fog-signal attachment, to be erected on the north shore of Lake Superior, in the vicinity of Split Rock, Minnesota, preferably on Carborundum Point, lying about half a mile north of Split Rock. There is at present no light-house on the north shore of Lake Superior between Grand Marais and Two Harbors, and it is extremely difficult to locate Two Harbors in a fog or storm, owing to the uncertain variation of the compass on the north shore of Lake Superior, due to the vast metallic deposits in that vicinity, and also owing to the dangerous character of the coast all along the north shore. During the past two years there have been disasters in this vicinity amounting to over $2,000,000, the total loss of the steamer Lafayette, the barge Madeira, the steamer Spencer, and the barge Pennington, and serious damage to the steamer Edenborn, the barge Manila, the steamer George W. Peavey, and others. It is the experience and opinion of masters that this is the natural place to make a landfall in approaching the head of Lake Superior, and a good light and a good fog signal at that point would greatly enhance the safety of navigation in all weathers at the head of the lake." On March 4, 1907, $75,000 was appropriated for a light and fog signal near Split Rock. Split Rock Lighthouse was designed by Ralph Russell Tinkham, and construction of the station, atop the 130- foot cliff, started in June of 1909. Excellent progress had been made when work was suspended for the season on November 21. Work resumed on May 1, 1910, and the light was put into commission on July 31, 1910. The station consisted of an octagonal brick tower, built around a steel framework, a brick fog signal house, an oil storage building, and three two-story brick dwellings, each with a small frame barn behind it. The fifty-four-foot-tall lighthouse employed a clockwork mechanism, driven by 250-pound weights, to revolve a third-order, bi-valve Fresnel lens, manufactured in Paris by Barbier, Bénard & Turenne. The lens produced a white flash every ten seconds, at a focal plane of 168 feet above mean lake level, using a 55-millimeter double-tank incandescent oil vapor lamp. The fog signal originally consisted of duplicate six-inch sirens excited by air compressed by a twenty-two horsepower gasoline engine. The station’s oil vapor light was replaced with a 1000-watt electric light in 1940, and the station’s other buildings were wired for electricity. The fog signal was discontinued in 1961, and by January 1, 1969, the light had been decommissioned, and the station was handed over to the General Services Administration for disposal.

TWO HARBORS LIGHTHOUSE-TWO HARBORS, MINNESOTA

                                                                                       Two Harbors Lighthouse n the 1940s
                                                                                Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard

Congress appropriated $10,000 on August 4, 1886 for a lighthouse and keeper’s dwelling at Two Harbors. Frustrated in its attempts to acquire a site on the headlands, the Lighthouse Board decided to place the light on pier-work in Agate Bay and estimated the work could be completed during the 1889 navigation season. Due to the delay in starting the project, Congress had to renew the original $10,000 appropriation in October 2, 1888, and to this they added $5,500 on March 2, 1889, for a fog signal. As the pier in Agate Bay was deemed “so narrow and so exposed to the sea that the station, if built upon it, would be insecure,” the Lighthouse Board decided the station had to be built on the rocky promontory between the two bays. The fog signal boilers and machinery were completed under contract and delivered to the lighthouse depot at Detroit in the first half of 1890, but as the owners of the desired land were “obstinate” and “refused to sell,” the Board had to ask the State of Minnesota to intervene. Condemnation proceedings were initiated in July 1890, and a deed to the site was finally obtained two months later. After plans for a tower with an attached keeper’s dwelling were drawn up, advertisements for the work were circulated, and a contract was awarded in June of 1891. Work on the headland commenced on July 15, 1891. After an approach to the site from the harbor’s breakwater was cleared, blasting for the foundation of the lighthouse was carried out in August and September. Construction continued uninterrupted through the summer and fall, and the lighthouse and fog signal were finished in November, when the fog signal was tested and found to function satisfactorily. Too late to be of service that season, the station was put into operation on April 15, 1892, with Charles Lederle as its first keeper. Two Harbors Lighthouse consists of a two-story, square, redbrick dwelling with gables facing the south and west, and a twelve-foot-square light tower attached to its southwest corner. The tower, built three bricks thick, is surmounted by an octagonal lantern room originally equipped with a fixed, fourth-order Fresnel lens that had a focal plane of forty-three-and-a-half-feet above the ground. The one-story fog signal building, which housed duplicate machinery and boilers for ten-inch steam whistles, was located 100 feet southwest of the lighthouse and was covered with corrugated iron on the outside and plain iron inside. A tramway lead from the station to the shore, 300 feet to the south. In 1921, the kerosene light used in the Fresnel lens was replaced by an electric light that increased the light’s power from 30,000 candlepower to 230,000 candlepower. The fourth-order Fresnel lens, a revolving four-sided lens that had replaced the original fixed lens in 1907, was removed in 1969 and transferred to the Inland Seas Maritime Museum. In its place, a twenty-four-inch aerobeacon was installed that rotates every twenty seconds to produce the following signature: 0.4 seconds of light, 4.6 seconds of darkness, 0.4 seconds of light, and 14.6 seconds of darkness. This beacon remains in use today. The fog signal was discontinued in 1973, and in 1981 the light was automated, allowing its Coast Guard personnel to be stationed elsewhere. In February 2015, the station’s fourth-order Fresnel lens, which had been on display at the Inland Seas Maritime Museum, was returned to Two Harbors and placed in an exhibit case.

TWO HARBORS BREAKWATER LIGHTHOUSE, TWO HARBORS, MINNESOTA

In 1887, a project was adopted to improve the harbor at Agate Bay by constructing breakwaters from the eastern and western entrance. At that time, Agate Bay, also known as Two Harbors, had two elevated iron ore docks, and two merchandise docks. Two Harbors Lighthouse commenced operation on the eastern side of Agate Bay in 1892, and on December 14, 1895 a white, eight-day lantern light, shown from an iron post at an elevation of thirty feet above lake level, was established on the outer end of the eastern breakwater that extended from the shore near the lighthouse. In 1902, after the work on the breakwaters had been completed the previous November, the iron post was moved 300 feet from the angle of the pier to the outer end of the newly constructed ell, where the light was changed from a lens-lantern to a Pintsch gas light. Compartments were constructed in the breakwater to hold two eight-foot-long, cylindrical gas tanks, which were connected via pipes to the iron post supporting the light. The new gas light was first exhibited on September 10, 1902. Four years later, the post light was replaced by an enclosed light tower, described in the Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board: The combined light and fog-bell tower and an electrically operated fog bell, on the easterly breakwater, was completed on August 4, 1906, and on August 4 the light and fog-signal went into operation. The new tower is 33 ½ feet high to the focal plane, and is a square, pyramidal, skeleton iron structure, painted white, surmounted by a square watchroom and black octagonal lantern. The fog bell is hung from the front of the tower and strikes a single blow every 10 seconds. A frame powerhouse, equipped with an oil engine, dynamo, and switchboard, was built onshore near the fog signal building at Two Harbors Lighthouse to provide power for the fog bell machinery. The weights used to power the striking machinery were wound up by a motor that was connected by wires to the powerhouse. The 1,500-pound bell was manufactured by Gamewell Fire Alarm Co. The 1906 lighthouse remains in service today exhibiting a red flash every six seconds. The 1,500-pound fog bell has been replaced by a horn that can be activated by keying a microphone five times on VHF-FM Channel 79.

DULUTH HARBOR SOUTH BREAKWATER INNER LIGHTHOUSE-DULUTH, MINNESOTA

DULUTH HARBOR SOUTH BREAKWATER OUTER LIGHTHOUSE-DULUTH, MINNESOTA

DULUTH HARBOR NORTH BREAKWATER LIGHTHOUSE, DULUTH, MINNESOTA

An act of June 3, 1896, unified the harbors of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin and provided over $3 million for improvements. Part of this money was used to widen the Duluth Canal and replace the existing piers with substantial structures of timber and monolithic concrete. Work began on the north pier in April 1898. The south pier was completed in 1900 and marked the following year by a pair of range lights, while the north pier was completed in 1901 and was not lit. The piers each have a length of about 1,700 feet and project roughly 1,150 feet beyond the shoreline. The foundation cribs extend twenty-two feet below low-water, and the concrete superstructures rise to a height of ten to eighteen feet above low-water. The lake entrance, between the piers, is 300 feet wide. In 1908 the Lighthouse Board acknowledged the need to mark the north pier. “The approach to Duluth Harbor is one of the worst and most dangerous on the whole chain of lakes. The entrance piers are only 300 feet in width, and the north pier is so close to shore that a vessel making a mistake in judging the width would be immediately on the rocks. The Lake Carrier’s Association considers this a matter of such importance that it has made arrangements for the exhibition of private lights for the balance of the season of navigation in 1908. The local officers of the Eleventh district, after careful investigation, state that navigation will be very decidedly facilitated by the establishment of a light on the north pier, and the Board therefore recommends that such light be established, at a cost of $4000. Congress appropriated $4000 on March 4, 1909. A conical tower consisting of latticed steel columns covered with a 5/6” steel shell was erected on the outer end of the north pier and lit for first time on April 7, 1910. The lighthouse stands thirty-seven feet tall and tapers from ten feet six inches at its base to eight feet at the base of the octagonal lantern room. A fifth-order, Henry-Lepaute Fresnel lens was mounted on a pedestal in the lantern room, and a motor connected to the city’s electric system was used to drive a  clockwork that produced the light’s characteristic of fixed white two seconds, eclipse two seconds. In 2014, an LED beacon replaced the active Fresnel lens in the lantern room. The change reduced the range of the light from about fourteen nautical miles to ten-and-a-half nautical miles.

RASPBERRY ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE-RASPBERRY ISLAND, WISCONSIN

The collection of islands off the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin was named for the twelve apostles of the New Testament by Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, a French Jesuit traveler and historian. The name Apostle Islands applies to the islands collectively, even though there are actually twenty-two of them; none of them actually carry the name of one of the apostles. Raspberry Island received its name because it is just offshore from where the Raspberry River empties into Raspberry Bay.Lighthouses had been built on Michigan Island in 1857 and Long Island in 1858 to guide mariners along the South Channel through the Apostle Islands. This route was convenient for vessels coming to Bayfield and Chequamegon Bay from the east, but mariners arriving from the west needed a beacon to guide them through the West Channel. Congress appropriated $6,000 on March 3, 1859 for a lighthouse on Raspberry Island to fulfill this role. When built in 1862, Raspberry Island Lighthouse was a two-story, rectangular dwelling with a square tower rising from the center of its pitched roof. The light from the tower’s fifth-order, fixed lens was exhibited for the first time on July 20, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, with Andrew Cramer as its keeper. By 1867, the characteristic of the light was changed from fixed white to a white light punctuated by a white flash every ninety seconds through the installation of three flash panels mounted on a cast iron frame that revolved around the lens. Every four hours, the keeper had to wind up the weights that powered the clockwork mechanism for producing the flashes. In 1880, the illuminant for the light was changed from lard oil to kerosene. A detached brick oil house for storing the more volatile fluid was not built until 1901. During 1902, materials for a fog signal building were purchased, and a $2,807 contract for the boilers and related machinery for a steam fog whistle was entered into with Optenberg and Sonneman of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In preparation for building the fog signal in 1903, a tramway was installed at Raspberry Island in 1902 to haul the construction materials and coal form the landing wharf to the top of the forty-foot bluff on which the station was located. A type F diaphone fog signal, sounded by compressed air produced by an oil engine, replaced the steam whistle in 1932. Raspberry Island Light was electrified in 1914, and its characteristic changed to three seconds of light followed by a two-second eclipse. The final keeper at Raspberry Island was Earl Seseman. He and a coastguardsman closed down the station in October 1947, after which the fog signal was a CO₂-powered bell. The station’s Fresnel lens was removed in 1957, and a light mounted on a pole took over the function of guiding mariners.

DEVILS ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE-DEVILS ISLAND, WISCONSIN

When Devils Island Lighthouse was finally activated in 1901, it became the eighth and final lighthouse to be built in the Apostle Islands. On March 2, 1889, Congress appropriated $15,000 for a lighthouse on Devils Island, the most northern in the Apostle Island archipelago. When finished, the lighthouse would serve as a coastal light, splitting the gap between Sand Island and Outer Island. Deciding that the island would need a fog signal as well, the Lighthouse Board asked for and received an additional $5,500 for this purpose in 1890. In 1891, realizing an additional $22,000 would be needed to complete the station, the Lighthouse Board erected a four-story, pyramidal, wooden tower on the northern end of Devils Island to display a temporary, fixed red light of the fourth order. The light went into service on September 30, 1891, along with a ten-inch steam whistle housed in a one-story frame structure covered with heavy sheathing and corrugated iron outside and smooth iron inside. In addition to the fog signal and temporary tower, ten acres of land were cleared so the light could be seen from all points of approach. A brick oil house and the first of two, stunning, redbrick, Queen Anne style keeper’s dwellings were also erected in 1891, along with a landing and the station’s boathouse, situated at the southern end of the island. Built of half-inch-thick steel plates, the cylindrical tower stands eighty feet tall and was originally braced at its base by eight latticed buttresses that stood thirteen feet high. A similar tower was also erected in 1898 at the entrance to the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal in Wisconsin, and it was soon found that the design had a major flaw: the tower would shake violently in high winds. In 1914, four of the buttresses were moved out from the tower and connected to vertical columns, linked with cross braces, that ran up the tower and connected to the watchroom. Also in 1914, the illuminant was changed to incandescent oil-vapor that increased the intensity of the red and white flashes. A radiobeacon was established on Devils Island on October 30, 1925. A powerful air diaphone fog signal replaced the steam whistle in April 1927, and in 1928 the light was electrified. By the time the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was formed in 1970, all of the lighthouses in the archipelago had been automated and de-staffed save Devils Island Lighthouse. Following the automation of LaPointe Lighthouse in 1964, the Coast Guard crew at Devils Island was responsible for all of the lights in the Apostle Islands. This continued until 1978, when Devils Island Lighthouse was automated and the station that was the last to be built became the last to be de-staffed. Despite protests from local citizens and the Park Service, the Coast Guard removed the third-order Fresnel lens from Devils Island Lighthouse in 1989 after replacing it with a modern beacon mounted on the gallery railing. The lighthouse on Devils Island was the only one in the Apostle Islands still using a Fresnel lens. Local residents sued the Coast Guard for removing the lens from the tower, which had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, without proper notification. Just three years later, the Park Service decided it would be fitting to return the lens to its original lantern room. After a Park Service conservator had spent three weeks restoring it, the lens was crated up and flown to Devils Island on a National Guard helicopter. On September 1, 1992, a tractor provided the power to hoist the 600-pound pieces up to the lantern room, where Robert Bolen, of Crescent City, California, reassembled them. Though inactive, the lens is at least back home where it had served mariners for over seventy-five years.