Plan your visit at the Port Huron Museum website.There’s no doubt this is a wonderfully imagined story, but it’s the research and hooks into reality that make the fantasy really shine here. Read more about the history of the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse at Kraig Anderson's Lighthouse Friends website. Clair County and restored by the Port Huron City Council, opening to the public in 2012. After the Coast Guard closed the lighthouse in 2004, it was purchased by St. The Fort Gratiot Lighthouse has lasted through the countless heavy storms of Lake Huron for over 180 years. The new tower was over 60 feet high and included a steam fog whistle to warn ships of impending fog on the river. Funds for a new Fort Gratiot Lighthouse were approved the following year. Sadly, the first lighthouse at this location was poorly built and succumbed to a storm in 1828, much to the delight of its keeper George McDougall who hated the nightly ascent up steep stairwells and through a 21-inch trap door. The Fort Gratiot Lighthouse was the first lighthouse built on Lake Huron, strategically placed at Fort Gratiot where water from Lake Huron pours into the St. Read more about the history of Chicago Harbor Lighthouses at the Chicago Maritime Museum website. Lighthouses were built at the ends of the piers to guide ships into the protected harbor. That same decade, the pernicious effect of Lake Michigan waves, which frequently raised the bed of the river mouth with sand, was reduced by the construction of piers curving out north and south from shore. To protect this critical harbor, the first Chicago lighthouse was built near the mouth of the Chicago River in 1832. Chicago's extraordinary growth, however, soon surrounded and blocked the lighthouse from view. In 1848, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made Chicago a crossroads for continental shipping traffic, reaching east to New England and south to the Gulf of Mexico. For centuries Native Americans traversed the short portage between the Des Plaines and Chicago rivers to move between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. Learn about the Devil's Island Lighthouse, the last of the Apostle Island Lights to be built, lit in 1891.Īs with most Great Lakes cities, Chicago's history is intertwined with its geography.Learn about the Outer Island Lighthouse, built in 1874.Learn about the Long Island Lighthouses, the earliest constructed in 1858. ![]() Emmanuel Luick, the lighthouse keeper from 1892 to 1921, wrote: "Sand Island was just like home.there we felt free with the wind and the sun and plenty of open spaces." When the Sand Island Lighthouse was automated in 1921, Luick was transferred to the Grand Marais, Minnesota Light.Įxplore more of the Apostle Island Lighthouses: While many of the Apostle Islands were uninhabited in the 19th and 20th century, Sand Island had a population of over 100 fishermen and farmers, mostly of Norwegian descent. The Sand Island Lighthouse was built in 1881, guiding commercial and passenger ships to port. Assembled in 1929, the New Light was the tallest light in Wisconsin at the time. Rather than build the New Light from scratch, the Lighthouse Service removed the discontinued Schooner's Ledge Light from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin. In 1869, the Old Light was restored and remained in operation until 1920s, when a taller lighthouse was required. ![]() ![]() Lit in 1857, the Old Light closed within a year, and the Long Island Light built instead. The Old Light was originally meant for Long Island in the Apostles, but a last minute change by the Lighthouse Service brought the rough stone tower to Michigan Island instead. ![]() The Michigan Island Lighthouses have an odd history. Learn more about the history of the Raspberry Island Lighthouse. On completion, the Raspberry Island Light was called "The Showplace of the Apostle Islands." Raspberry Island, protected as a federal preserve, is one of the few islands to retain its old-growth forest. Henry Rice, the founder of Bayfield, Wisconsin lobbied for a light to guide ships into the new port, and President Buchanan ordered its construction in 1859. Raspberry Island Lighthouse was constructed between 18, during the US Civil War. Their lighthouses guided ships through the maze of islands into the port at Bayfield, Wisconsin. The Apostle Islands dot the coastline of the southern shore of Lake Superior.
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