Linda’s Monday Morning Monthly Moaning’s on August 1, 2022
This past week I was given the opportunity to go up to Mackinaw City to the home of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Association group, where they were having their annual fund raiser at the Headlands Dark Sky Park. There would also be a daytime lighthouse tour on Lake Michigan for the Straits area lights, two of which I am going to talk about today. Gray’s Reef and the Lansing Shoal lights. Included in the trip was a dinner and a presentation by a very interesting gentleman named Ron Mixter, a lighthouse and ship wreck researcher and diver. At the Associations invitation, I was able to also display my Great Lakes Lighthouse book. A beautiful day to be out on a Michigan Great Lake.
Gray’s Reef Lighthouse, was built in 1936 after replacing a lightship once used to mark the dredged channel through this reef, 20 mies west of the Mackinac Bridge, on the northeast side of the lake. A wooden crib was sunk 26 feet into the lake on to the reef then filed with stone and concrete. Soon a two story base was built on the pier. The upper level provided the crew with a galley, berths and a head. The station’s radio beacon operated 24 hours a day and each of the three keepers on duty rotated through a six-hour watch. The 65 foot tower was much narrower and would look like a rocket on a launch pad. the structure was always known for it’s art deco style and very white coloring. The base and tower were constructed of steel enforced concrete. it’s 115 stairs led up to the lantern, which when operative housed a 3 1/2-order Fresnel lens. The light had four keepers working with one on leave and three on duty at the light. Besides minding the light, their goal was to not go ‘stir-crazy’. In 1965, their routine was interrupted one night by a large noise while having foggy weather. The lighthouse had been struck by a passing ship, and the light never moved. While the ship was quit damaged, the lighthouse suffered little damage. In 1976 the Fresnel lens was removed and the light automated, making keepers no longer needed. but a wonderful place for lake birds to stop.
Lansing Shoal Lighthouse, is located in northern Lake Michigan about 5 miles north of Squaw Island and 40 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge in the Straits and 17 mile out of the Suel Choix Point Lighthouse in the upper portion of Michigan. This hazardous shoal out in the lake was also home to a lightship for a time until the ships became larger and the Davis and Sabin locks were completed in 1919 to accommodate larger vessels that could break through the thicker ice. In 1926 Congress approved a permanent lighthouse on the shoal. Four large concrete caissons were placed on a stone foundation. The caissons were filled with stone and capped with a 7 foot thick slabs of steel reinforced concrete. The basement crib was built on top of the foundation. In turn the twenty-seven, 24-in porthole windows, became the deck of the concrete pier. The crib would contain the living quarters and well as engine space. A 37-foot square base of reenforced concrete was paid in the center of the pier. The 59 foot tower was toped with a circular lantern with a third order Fresnel lens. In 1976 the light was automated and the windows, portholes and doors were cemented in, leaving only one access door. The Fresnel lens was removed in 1985 and replaced with a 190mm solar-powered plastic optic. Today the U.S. Coast Guard and local lake birds are the only on site visitors to this light.
What is the difference in a reef and a shoal? A reef is a structure of rock that rises up from the bottom of the lake and has no connection to land. A shoal is a shallow out cropping of rock or sand that extends underwater which has its origin on dry land.
On that ‘wee note’ till next month, Monday September 5, 2022
Great Lakes Lighthouse Encyclopedia, by Larry and Patricia Wright, research material.
Thank your visiting and reading today. Be sure to share with your friends using the share button below. If you haven’t already please enter your email address in the form below to receive my stories by email.
Linda Osborne Cynowa 