Fourteen Foot Shoal Lighthouse - 1932
Photograph Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard
NAVIGATION - LAKE HURON
Cheboygan Lighthouse was built in 1851 to guide mariners through the South Channel that passes between the northern end of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula and the southern side of Bois Blanc Island. As vessels with deeper drafts became more common on the Great Lakes, shoals in the South Channel started to pose a significant threat, especially during storms. Two of these shoals were Poe Reef, located off the southeast tip of Bois Blanc Island, and Fourteen Foot Shoal, situated about a mile northwest of Cheboygan Lighthouse. In 1913, the Lake Carriers’ Association requested a permanent lighthouse and fog signal to replace the lightship stationed at Poe Reef, but it wasn’t until 1926 that the Commissioner of Lighthouses requested funds for such a project. After considering several options for improving navigational aids along the South Channel, it was decided to place a manned lighthouse on Poe Reef and a remotely controlled lighthouse on Fourteen Foot Shoal, which would allow Cheboygan Lighthouse to be discontinued. A gas buoy was anchored on Fourteen Foot Shoal on April 15, 1925, replacing a can buoy that had formerly marked the hazard. Congress made an initial appropriation of $78,000 in early 1927 that allowed work to begin that summer on the new navigational aids. A site on Cheboygan River, two miles from Fourteen Foot Shoal, was leased as a base for operations during the project, and the construction camp on Government Island used for building Martin Reef Lighthouse was moved there. The forty-six-foot-square-timber crib for Fourteen Foot Shoal was constructed onshore in July 1928 and then towed out into the lake the following month and filled with rock and cement. A temporary light was used to mark the manmade obstruction, and work on the cement deck began in May 1929. By October 3, 1929, the lantern room had been installed atop the tower, and work was underway on the lighthouse’s hip roof. Poe Reef Lighthouse was placed in operation on August 15, 1929, but Fourteen Foot Shoal Lighthouse was not finished before the end of that shipping season and instead went into service on April 18, 1930. Height: Tower 36' (11m), Focal plane:55' (17m), Original lens - Fourth-order Fresnel lens, Current lens - 9.8-inch (250 mm) Tidelands acrylic Fresnel Lens, Range: 14 nautical miles (26 km), Characteristic: Occulting W 4 seconds, operates year round. Fog signal: The fog signal is a small-type diaphone, 1 blast every 15 seconds operated by compressed air from motor-driven compressors which are in turn supplied with current from 5-kilowatt gasoline-engine generating units or from a storage battery. In 2002, the crew of the USCGC Mackinaw repainted and refurbished the lighthouse.
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