POINT IROQUOIS LIGHTHOUSE-MICHIGAN

In January 1853, the Michigan Legislature passed a resolution requesting its senators and representatives to Congress use their influence to promote the establishment of thirteen new lighthouses in the state, including one at Point Iroquois and one on the island just off Point aux Chens, two miles east of Point Iroquois. Two months later, Congress appropriated $5,000 for a lighthouse at “Point Iroqouis, or on the island off Point aux Chens, Michigan, as the Light-House Board shall determine.” The  Lighthouse Board selected Point Iroquois as the site, and a contract was signed in 1854. Work on the lighthouse, which consisted of a cylindrical, forty-five-foot, stone tower, fitted with wood stairs and an octagonal, iron lantern room, was carried out in 1855, and Charles Caldwell, who had previously served as an assistant at Whitefish Point, was appointed the first keeper of the light in 1856. A sixth-order Fresnel lens was used in the lighthouse to produce a fixed white light that had a focal plane of sixty-five feet above the lake. A detached, one-and-half-story, stone dwelling, measuring twenty-eight feet square, was built for the keeper. The establishment of Point Iroquois Lighthouse occurred roughly one year after the opening of the Soo Locks, which led to a significant increase in vessel traffic on Lake Superior. In 1867, the Lighthouse Board requested a new iron lantern deck for the lighthouse to replace the existing wooden one. This work may not have been carried out, as two years later, the Board noted that the tower and dwelling were in such poor condition that only temporary repairs would be made and requested $18,000 for a new lighthouse. Congress quickly complied, allocating the requested amount on July 15, 1870, and work on a new lighthouse and dwelling began that same year. The second tower stands nearly sixty-two feet tall and tapers from a diameter of sixteen feet at its base to ten feet at the lantern room. A circular iron stairway winds up the brick tower and provides access to the decagonal lantern room, where a fourth-order, L. Sautter & Cie. Fresnel lens was mounted atop a pedestal. Equipped with ten flash panels, the lens revolved once every five minutes to produce white flashes spaced by thirty seconds. An eight-room, brick keeper’s dwelling was attached to the base of the tower by a covered passageway. A fog bell, struck a single blow every twelve seconds, was established at Point Iroquois on October 25, 1884 to help mariners navigate in thick weather. In 1888, the Lighthouse Board requested $5,500 for a steam fog whistle to serve “the immense number of vessels which concentrate” near the point. The necessary funds were provided in an act passed March 2, 1889, and the boilers and machinery were installed in a frame building, twenty-two by forty feet in plan, that was located 400 feet northeast of the lighthouse. First placed in operation on October 31, 1890, the ten-inch steam whistle emitted a five-second blast every thirty seconds. A well provided water for the fog signal, which was in operation about 400 hours per year while consuming roughly twenty tons of coal. In 1896, the old bell tower was taken down and relocated to the station at Grand Marais, Michigan. A forty-foot-tall brick chimney replaced the fog signal’s sheet-iron smokestacks in 1900. On May 3, 1913, the intensity of the Point Iroquois Light was increased nearly eight fold my changing its illuminant from oil to incandescent oil vapor. The period of the flashes was reduced in 1913 and then again in 1922, when the characteristic became a flash every four seconds. The fog signal at Point Iroquois was changed from a steam whistle to an air siren on April 13, 1927, and then to a type “B” air diaphone, powered by electrically operated compressors in 1933. Electricity, provided by electric generators, was also extended to the tower and dwelling in 1933. After the establishment of the offshore Gros Cap Point Light by Canada in 1962, Point Iroquois Lighthouse was deactivated in 1963. The fourth-order Fresnel lens was removed and shipped to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and the lighthouse was declared excess property by the Coast Guard. The U.S. Forest Service applied for the lighthouse reservation in 1964 and was awarded the property in 1965.