ONTONAGON LIGHTHOUSE-ONTONAGON, MICHIGAN

Congress appropriated $5,000 for Ontonagon Lighthouse on September 28, 1850, and W.F. Chittenden, a Detroit contractor, was hired to build it on a 22.63-acre parcel on the west side of the entrance to the Ontonagon River that had been acquired in April 1847. The original Ontonagon Lighthouse consisted of a one-and-a-half-story stone dwelling, measuring thirty-eight by twenty feet, which was topped by a short tower. An array of six lamps set in fourteen-inch reflectors was used to produce a fixed white light at a height of thirty-five feet above the lake, until a fifth-order Fresnel lens was installed in the tower in 1857. Samuel Peck was appointed the light’s first keeper on August 26, 1853. Like all the other early lighthouses built on Lake Superior, the first Ontonagon Lighthouse had a short life. Congress appropriated $14,000 on April 7, 1866 for “repairs and renovations at Ontonagon light-station,” but during that year an entirely new “schoolhouse” style lighthouse was built, consisting of a nine-foot-square tower centered in the lake-facing gable of a one-and-a-half-story brick dwelling. The fifth-order Fresnel lens from the original lighthouse was transferred to the new decagonal lantern room, where it was mounted atop a cast-iron pedestal. The 1888 Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board noted the following improvements to the station: “A frame wood shed, 12 feet by 20 feet in plan, was built near the dwelling. A brick cistern, with a capacity of 338 gallons, to supply water for domestic purposes, was built in the rear of the dwelling. A wagon road was made from the station to the nearest public road, and materials were furnished for the construction of a root-house.” Two years later, an eighteen-foot-square kitchen was attached to the rear of the dwelling. A brick oil house, with a capacity of 360 gallons, was built in 1902, and the water pipe connecting the dwelling to a pump was lowered twenty inches that same year to prevent it from freezing. In 1904, dormers were added to the lighthouse to provide light and additional space in the upper story. Arnold Huuki, the last of the nine keepers of Ontonagon Lighthouse, retired on January 1, 1964, when the light was discontinued. Just over a month earlier, Keeper Huuki had been presented a diamond pin for forty years of efficient and faithful government service. Arnold and Lillian Huuki continued to live in the lighthouse after it was discontinued, but the property was eventually turned over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who were dredging the river. For a number of years, the lighthouse served as a clubhouse for the local coast guard auxiliary.