I enjoy traveling to other states and exploring new places for my Lost In The States website, but after a while I get homesick for Michigan. Coming around the bottom of Lake Michigan and heading into the Great Lakes State, it is a beautiful sight site to see the lighthouse at the welcome center along I-94 near New Buffalo.

Setting sail along the concrete and asphalt seas, it is comforting to have a lighthouse guiding travelers along their journey. In todays modern era of turn by turn navigation and GPS, the lighthouse stands as a reminder of days gone by, and a time when lighthouses and their keepers protected sailors and their ships from the perils of a rocky shoreline.

Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state in the Union. It is comforting to travel around the two peninsulas and you are never to far from one of these magnificent and historic beacons. Michigan is the Great Lakes State, but to me it is also the Lighthouse State.

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The Cheboygan Crib Light stands proudly at the mouth of the Cheboygan River, looking over the Straights of Mackinac, remembering the time it once stood out there in the open waters, guiding ships and sailors safely thru the straights.

The Light was originally built in Lake Huron in 1884 on a “crib”, (an artificial-island landfill) more than 2,000 feet from the Cheboygan shore. The Crib Light is called a “light” rather than a “lighthouse” because it did not contain a structure in which a keeper lived. The keeper lived in Cheboygan and he would take a boat daily to the crib, in all weather conditions, to maintain the kerosene-fired light. This was hazardous duty especially docking to the crib in heavy waves during a storm.

In 1903, the existing wooden structure was torn down to a depth of 12 inches (300 mm) into the water and a new sturdier concrete steel structure was erected. In 1906, the rebuilt light was severely damaged when a schooner hit it. In 1911 an automated fog bell was installed, sounding a characteristic single stroke every ten seconds.

The Cheboygan Crib Light before it was moved to it current location at the mouth of the Cheboygan River

In 1920, the Lighthouse Service oversaw the automation of the Crib Light. In the Crib Light’s new incarnation, kerosene was no longer necessary; instead, a traveling crew periodically delivered tanks of the flammable gas acetylene. A reliable pilot light burned day and night. When the sunset, the resulting drop in temperature would open a precision valve and release a flow of acetylene against the pilot light, causing the light to shine. When last Lighthouse keeper left in 1929, the old light quickly degraded.

In the second half of the 20th century, the invention of radar and other electronic aids to navigation began to render many Great Lakes navigational light towers redundant. The Crib Light was considered by the Coast Guard to be “surplus” property. In 1984, the Crib Light tower was removed from its crib and placed on its current base located on the Gordon Turner Park pier head.

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I can only imagine how lonely and isolated it must have been to be a Lighthouse keeper in northern Michigan, but for the crew at Poe Reef Lighthouse,  it must have been especially challenging.  In the fall they survived Michigan storms raging with the waves of Lake Huron splashing up the sides of the lighthouse. In early spring ice would pound on the concrete foundation violently shaking it.

In 1893 a lightship was anchored above the reef located at the east end of South Channel near  Bois Blanc Island east of Cheboygan.   In 1928 a concrete structure was built with a lighthouse on top of it replacing the lightship. The Poe lighthouse was originally painted all white, which sometimes confused mariners because they shared colors and a common structural design. Thus, a decision was made in 1957 to paint Poe in contrasting bands of black and white.

The Poe Reef station was designed so that the onsite crew could also remotely operate the Fourteen Foot Shoal Light. By 1974 both lights have were fully automated and the fog horn is still in service. In 1929, Poe Reef Lighthouse and Cape Henry Lighthouse became the first in the United States to be equipped with synchronized radiobeacons and fog signals. When these two signals are sent simultaneously, a mariner can note the time interval between the arrival of the radio signal and sound signal and calculate the vessel’s distance from the lighthouse. Poe Reef Lighthouse was operated by a five man crew and had four diesel engines, four gas-operated generators and an eight-foot long pane of radio instruments.

The reef and light are named for lighthouse designer Orlando M. Poe. During ten years of service as Engineer for the Eleventh Lighthouse District he designed eight lighthouses in Michigan and his”crowning achievement” is considered to be the Poe Lock in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

In 2005, the Poe Reef Light lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the parallel state inventory of historic sites

If your wondering, I took this pic from the shoreline of the Cheboygan State Park near the lighthouse ruins of the old lighthouse HERE

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The McGulpin Point Light, a true lighthouse with a light tower and attached lighthouse keeper’s living quarters, was completed by the United States Lighthouse Board in 1869 at a cost of $20,000. The living quarters were built as a vernacular 11⁄2-story brick structure. The lighthouse operated during the Great Lakes navigation seasons from 1869 until 1906.

The design was so successful that the Lighthouse Board chose to use this 1868 design in the construction of Eagle Harbor Light in 1871; White River Light in 1875; and Sand Island Light in 1881. It is a “mirror image of the design” used at Chambers Island Light and Eagle Bluff light. The design is sometimes called “Norman Gothic” style

James Davenport was the only lighthouse keeper at this light, and served for 27 years. Correspondence files in the National Archives in Washington show that Davenport made weekly trips through the snow to the lighthouse to report on its condition to the District Inspector in Milwaukee. Perhaps more importantly, these letters also show that he may have played a critical role in the opening of navigation every spring by reporting weekly, and sometimes even more frequently, on ice conditions in the Straits. Because Davenport was the only Straits keeper to submit such frequent reports, it would appear that the Inspector used these reports to gain an understanding as to when navigation would be open throughout the lakes.

In 1906, the McGulpin Point Light was deactivated and privatized due to the Lighthouse Board’s judgment that the nearby Old Mackinac Point Light was performing an adequate job of marking the Straits of Mackinac.[9] At some point after deactivation, the lighthouse tower’s lantern room was removed, and the building passed into private ownership. The building then entered service as a private residence

In 2005 the Lighthouse was put up for sale and Emmet County purchased it, now the light is open for tours. It’s a couple miles west of Mackinaw City,  I have been to the top of the tower, and I will say, it has a spectacular view of the straights and the bridge.

If you love lighthouses I hope you will take a look at my new Lighthouse book HERE

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