Midwest Guest

Midwest travel links for August 2010

Check out these great Midwest-related stories I've read online this past month:

• Colorful Caribbean Floats-Charlie spotted some beautiful flashes of color while riding his bicycle through Detroit recently, discovering a workshop and artists creating floats and costumes for the city's Annual Caribbean International Festival Parade. Check out his story and photos of the workshop and the subsequent parade at Bikes, Books & A Little Music.





• Chicago and Milwaukee: Large Public Art and Placemaking-Public art pieces in Chicago like The Bean and a huge American Gothic sculpture are big tourist draws. Jeramey takes a look at <heh> Chicago's latest piece of public art and argues that Milwaukee could benefit from emulating Chicago's penchant for large pieces of statement art. Oh, and check out Milwaukee's Bronze Fonz, which is exactly what you probably think it is-the Fonz of Happy Days fame immortalized as (you guessed it) a bronze statue.

• Backyard Adventures: 100 Acres at the Indianapolis Museum of Art-Check out this outdoor arts park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Arrows Sent Forth. Traveling with kids? This story also has some great tips about the terrain, rest rooms, parking, picnicking at the museum, and more.

• Evansville Otters Baseball for Southwest Indiana-There is still a bit of time to take in a baseball game this season, and Erik takes readers to a game with the Evansville Otters of the Frontier League at Indiana Insider Blog. I enjoyed hearing about the team's historic 95-year-old ball park and its connection to the movie, "A League of Their Own".

• Thriving in the BWCAW-Join Rob and his family on a canoe adventure in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It's been a while since we visited the area ourselves, but I vividly remember the quarter-mile downhill portage and the quarter-mile uphill portage we did during one of our day trips, so I can feel Rob's pain as he talks about two miles worth of portages during his trip at The Intense Traveler. But it's all worth it!





• Looking at the End of Summer from the Lighthouse Steps- The marble, Albert Kahn-designed William Livingstone Memorial Lighthouse on Detroit's Belle Isle is a real beauty, so I particularly enjoyed taking a closer look at this unique tower at Belle Isle Home.

• Road Trip Music: Indiana-Kerry explores the Midwest and its music at Music Road. Check out this profile of Indiana folksinger Carrie Newcomer (born in Michigan, by the way) and other Midwest musician profiles at Kerry's site.

• Discovering Musical History on Race Street-Michael takes us to historic Herzog Studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, in his Soapbox Cincinnati story. Popular music legends like Hank Williams, Patti Page, Flatt & Scruggs, and Bull Moose Jackson (an early R&B artist whose song, "Big Ten Inch Record", some music fans may remember best as an Aerosmith cover) all recorded at Herzog Studios.

• Highway 100-Travel the length of this Minnesota highway via video in a matter of minutes! I enjoyed this little virtual vacation at the Nokohaha blog.





• 7/79 video takes views on unique visual tour of Cincinnati's center-Driving into the Ohio River? Seeing Cincinnati-area landmarks like the Roebling Bridge or The Ascent in nearby Covington, Kentucky, from the air? Randy posted this virtual vacation on Urban Cincy.

Do you know of any other Midwest-related blogs I should check out?

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Pointe aux Barques Lighthouse stands tall at the tip of Michigan's Thumb on Lake Huron

The Pointe aux Barques Lighthouse near the tip of Michigan's Thumb marks a crucial turning point for vessels going into Saginaw Bay, warning boats of a shallow reef extending nearly two miles into Lake Huron.

Pointe aux Barques ("Point of little boats") takes its name from the French fur traders who originally traveled the area in birch bark canoes, gathering there each spring to trade furs and take on new supplies before another trapping season.

This lighthouse is among the 10 oldest lighthouses in Michigan, although it isn't the first light tower to grace this rocky point on the eastern shore of Lake Huron between Port Hope and Port Austin.

President James K. Polk appropriated $5,000 to build the first lighthouse at Pointe aux Barques in 1847. The location seemed ideal and there was an abundance of stone along the shore to use as building material.

The first lighthouse likely had a short stone tower and small dwelling. A recent archeological dig by students and staff from Western Michigan University unearthed some evidence of the original light and its footprint.

Peter Shook was the lighthouse's first keeper, arriving in 1848 with his wife Catherine and their eight children. Catherine took ill shortly after arriving at Pointe aux Barques, so Peter brought a doctor to the lighthouse to care for his wife. Peter and the doctor both drowned on a trip to return the doctor to his home. Catherine's appointment to take Peter's place made her Michigan's first female light keeper according to the state historical marker in front of the lighthouse.

Catherine's troubles continued as a fire destroyed her family's home at the lighthouse in 1849, but she remained on the job for another two years.  

Further damage occurred at the lighthouse as the original construction and materials weren't strong enough to withstand the weather and waves, and the tower likely wasn't tall enough to be easily visible or effective.

Plans to completely replace the lighthouse resulted in construction of an 89-foot-tall tower and attached dwelling of Cream City brick in 1857. The light with its Third Order Fresnel lens was visible more than 15 miles away on the lake.

A new two-story dwelling attached to the tower via a short enclosed passage had an arch-topped cast iron door separating both structures as a way to deter any possible fires from spreading.

In 1875, the Port Hope Life Saving Station appeared about 800 feet south of the lighthouse.

Changes at the lighthouse over the years included: the construction of a round oil shed to store flammable oils away from the tower in 1892 (the little red building visible in the photo below), construction of an assistant keepers' home in 1908, electrification of the light in 1932, and retirement of the last light keeper with automation of the light in 1939.

The Coast Guard decommissioned the life saving station and its 15 buildings in 1939, moving some of the buildings to the nearby Huron City complex of historic buildings.

The 1950s saw the removal of the Fresnel lens and its replacement by more modern beacons. Huron County acquired the lighthouse and its grounds in 1958 to use as a park, campground, and lighthouse museum.

Lighthouse County Park sits near on original site of the life saving station and has 110 modern and rustic campsites, a handful of rustic cabins, picnic areas, pavilions, and playground equipment. We've been out to the park at different times of the year, and it never seems overcrowded. We spotted only a few RVs and tents at the campground during our most recent visit in early August.

The non-profit Pointe aux Barques Lighthouse Society, formed in 2002, currently maintains the site as a museum open from May through early October. We found the museum open, but not staffed, later than the posted hours during our last visit.

The light tower is not generally open to the public, although you can look up the spiral staircase from the foot of the tower. We just missed the annual Lighthouse Heritage Days in early August when visitors could climb the tower for a small donation to help fund Pointe aux Barques maintenance.

Renovations and restoration continue at the lighthouse, and I remember visiting a few years ago before the tower's most recent paint job. This most recent visit, I spotted a sign in the museum saying that the Fresnel lens now at Huron City will soon return to the lighthouse

Want to learn more about the tip of Michigan's Thumb? Check out Huron County Michigan by the Huron County Historical Society. I always find these little Arcadia Publishing volumes of historic photos and short histories a fun way to learn a little about places I visit.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail Highlights

Driving along the shoreline is always a special treat for me, and I'm particularly fond of the designated routes encircling the Great Lakes.

We live close to the Ohio border, and we've traveled the Lake Erie Ohio Coastal Trail many times. The 293-mile route is primarily Ohio's portion of the 660-mile Lake Erie Circle Tour and wends its way through a variety of nature preserves, historic sites, big urban centers, and small towns.

You can drive the entire route in a day, or you can easily spend several days exploring the trail. We're close enough to the western end of the route that we occasionally do a portion of the route just east of Toledo as a day trip.

The Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail earned its designation as an Ohio State Scenic Byway in December of 2004, and became a National Scenic Byway in September of 2005. The Lake Erie Circle Tour earned its designation in the early 1990s.

The Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail runs from the Michigan border near Toledo, Ohio, and on through Conneaut, Ohio, to the Pennsylvania state line.

Here are some highlights of our travels along the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail:

• Toledo-Stop by the legendary Tony Packo's for a Hungarian hot dog and some fried pickles and peppers, tour the city's Old West End neighborhood with its stately Victorian-era homes, and visit Toledo Museum of Art with its outdoor sculpture garden and renowned glass collection. Take in a Mud Hens' baseball game, or do a little shopping at the city's Farmers Market and the Libbey Glass Outlet.





• Maumee/Oak Harbor-Spend a night at the Maumee Bay State Park Resort or an afternoon on the resort's nature trail, where you can spot the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse in the distance. Nature lovers, hikers, photographers and birders will enjoy visiting the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge just east of Toledo. Don't miss the Ohio Bicentennial barn along the route near the wildlife sanctuaries.





• Sandusky/Marblehead-Most people know the Sandusky area best for the Cedar Point Amusement Park or island destinations like Put-In Bay. It's been quite some time since I've been to either place (which gives me more excuse to travel out this route yet again), but other favorite places in this section of the route include the city of Sandusky itself with its Carnegie Library and a trip out to the tip of the Marblehead Peninsula to see the Marblehead Lighthouse.

• Cleveland-Cleveland clearly rocks with us, as we've been there multiple times. I bought a charter membership to the city's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum, so we make it there quite often. You might not think of a cemetery as a trip destination, but Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery is an especially interesting stop for those who love history and taking photos. While you're at Lake View, don't miss the President Garfield Memorial or the Wade Chapel (the chapel's Tiffany-designed interior and windows earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973). President Garfield's home in Mentor, Ohio, is just east of Cleveland and another must-see for history buffs.





• Ashtabula-There is plenty to see in this city near the eastern end of the route. Catch a glimpse of the Ashtabula Lighthouse or check out Point Park with its great view of the city's bascule bridge. The Hubbard House was an important Underground Railroad terminus and sits on a quiet side street within sight of Lake Erie.

I expect we'll travel this trail many more times as there are plenty of other places along the route we've yet to see, so don't be surprised to see a sequel to this post sometime in the future!

We have a GPS, but I still find a good map invaluable when we travel. Delorme publishes a series of map books covering each individual state, with each book including listings of features like parks, historic sites, museums, campgrounds, and other great information. These books are a must for road trips, and I've worn out several of the Michigan and Ohio Gazetteers from use over the years. Check out the Ohio Atlas & Gazetteer before heading out on the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Midwest travel links for July 2010

Here are a few interesting Midwest-related stories I've read online this past month:

• A Visit to Round Island Lighthouse-This little gem of a lighthouse near Michigan's Mackinac Island opens to the public one day each year, so is a special treat when Jennifer shared these photos of her recent visit to the lighthouse with her friend Bree on Bree's Mackinac Island Blog.

• The J.W. Wescott II mail boat-A boat with its own Zip Code? Read about it at Sweet Juniper as Jim writes about the Detroit River Post Office aboard the J.W. Wescott II, the only boat in the world dedicated expressly for mail delivery to vessels along the Detroit River.

• Cincinnati's Dramatic, Multi-Billion Dollar Riverfront Revitalization Nearly Complete-Urban planner Randy Simes details this Ohio city's riverfront $3 billion transformation from an aging industrial space into an exciting mixed-use district at the Urbanophile. We visited completed components of this revitalization like the Great American Ball Park and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center during our last visit to the city.





• Milwaukee, A Walker's Paradise-Andrew takes readers on a tour of walkable Milwaukee at Urban Out, checking out some downtown bars, eateries, shopping districts, and residential neighborhoods.

• Chicago's Grocery Store in the Sky-Wayne takes us to one of Chicago's most exclusive stores, a grocery store on the 44th floor of the John Hancock building called the Potash Gourmet 44. Visitors must pass a lobby security checkpoint, pass the 44th floor lobby receptionist, and be a building resident (or with a resident) to go shopping there. Or you can enjoy this virtual visit with Wayne.

• Wayne County Treasures: The Levi Coffin House-We learned a bit about Levi Coffin and his role in the Underground Railroad in Ohio when we visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, so it was especially interesting to me to learn a bit more about his earlier days with the Underground Railroad in Indiana. Check this story by Andrea on the Indiana Insider Blog.

• Flint Portraits: Lloyd Copeman-Next time you fill up your glass with ice by flipping ice cubes out of your flexible ice cube tray, you can thank Flint-area inventor Lloyd Copeman. The flexible plastic ice cube tray earned this prolific inventor an astounding $500,000 during the late 1920s. Gordon writes about Copeman and his many inventions at Flint Expatriates.

• Jolly Green Giant Statue-Beth and her family visited the big green guy in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Read about their visit to this 55-foot-tall landmark and roadside attraction at The Vacation Gals blog.

• Two Miles an Hour-Did you ever wonder what it was like to cross the prairies in a covered wagon? Join Andrea at Horizontal Lines as she takes on a day-long trail ride in northwestern North Dakota to relive her immigrant ancestors' experiences as they settled into a new land.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Michigan's Point Betsie Lighthouse restoration

Point Betsie Lighthouse holds a special place in my heart, and we've visited this scenic spot along Lake Michigan's shore near Frankfort, Michigan, many times over the years.

The lighthouse itself is undergoing a multi-year restoration, and we recently visited to check out the ongoing work there.

Restoration workers found the lighthouse, especially the interior, in pretty rugged shape as they started work about five years ago. Check Point Betsie Lighthouse wins Michigan's Governor's Award to see my photos from the beginning of the interior restoration and compare them to the photos posted here and earlier this week at Michigan's Point Betsie Lighthouse restoration continues.

Quite a difference, right?

I also enjoyed seeing Point Betsie's Fresnel lens displayed in a case as part of the historical exhibits in the lighthouse's lower level. A more modern acrylic lens is in the light tower today.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Minnesota's Split Rock Lighthouse celebrates centennial year

The strikingly beautiful Split Rock Lighthouse, perched high on a 130-foot cliff along Lake Superior on Minnesota's scenic North Shore, celebrates the centennial anniversary of its first lighting in 1910 on July 31.

We've visited the lighthouse a couple of times during the summer, when sunny days with clear skies made it difficult to get a bad photo of Split Rock, and the Minnesota Historical Society acknowledges the fact that Split Rock is favorite with photographers by helpfully posting photos of the lighthouse from several unique vantage points photographers can consider when planning their shots.

I've taken the long trek down the steep stairway (174 steps by one visitor's count) from the lighthouse to the shore to get a few photos from the foot of the cliff. Of course, what goes down must go back up, so it can be quite a workout just to get those few shots!

Today the lighthouse is one of Minnesota's most popular attractions, even as it owes its existence to particularly turbulent times along Lake Superior.

The year 1905 saw a savage storm lasting for several days in late November resulting in 29 shipwrecks. The loss of those ships and the lives of some sailors aboard them spurred demand for a lighthouse in the area.

In 1907, Congress responded to the demands by appropriating $75,000 for the land and construction of the lighthouse with several other buildings.

The lighthouse's cliff-top location makes its beacon visible as far away as 22 miles on a clear day. The remote location also made construction of the lighthouse particularly challenging.

There were no roads to the site, so workers had to bring all building materials to the site via water. Deep water at the foot of the cliff made it relatively easy for ships to pull in close to shore, and a timber derrick with a hoisting engine transported the construction materials from the shore to the top of the cliff.

In 1910, workers completed Split Rock Lighthouse. The site included the lighthouse as well as several other buildings like three light keeper houses and a fog signal building.

Lighthouse engineer Ralph Russell Tinkham designed the pyramidal octagonal brick tower of Cream City brick with concrete trim on a concrete foundation, topped by a cast iron lantern room to house a second-order Fresnel lens. The project reportedly came in under budget at $72,500, but that included a smaller third-order Fresnel lens for the light tower.

The first lighthouse visitors reportedly showed up only six weeks after the keepers lit the light for the first time. In 1924, the construction of the North Shore Highway past the station opened the site up even further to tourists. In 1936, more than 30,000 visitors signed the lighthouse log book. Today, the annual Split Rock Lighthouse visitor total easily exceeds 100,000.

In 1969, the Coast Guard retired the light, even as the lighthouse earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places that same year.

The State of Minnesota acquired the lighthouse in 1971, and the Minnesota Historical Society took over operation of the lighthouse and accompanying buildings as a historical site.

Visitors can tour the lighthouse and a light keeper's home, both restored to their 1920s-era appearance, from mid-May through mid-October. An on-site visitor center is open year round.

Costumed guides, who often include one acting in character as Split Rock's first light keeper, Orrin "Pete" Young, greet visitors at the light keeper's home. I remember the "light keeper" puzzling over my picture taking during one visit, hearing him marvel to his "wife" about my fascination with their washboard, wringer, and wash tub as we left the building!

The lighthouse also welcomes visitors one night during the late autumn, opening each November 10 and lighting the beacon in memory of the 29 men lost during the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975.

Want to learn more? Check out So Terrible a Storm: A Tale of Fury on Lake Superior by Curt Brown. Some observers and researchers question the whether a lighthouse at Split Rock's location would have done much to avert the tragedies in 1905 or if the toll really justified constructing the lighthouse, questions which Minnesota journalist Brown explores in this book.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Michigan's Point Betsie Lighthouse restoration continues

We've visited northern Michigan's Point Betsie Lighthouse many times, taking a special interest in restoration work at the lighthouse as it proceeded over recent years, and regular Midwest Guest readers may recall that I recently wrote about Michigan's Point Betsie Lighthouse receiving a Governor's Award for Historic Preservation.

We saw a lot of the exterior improvements at the lighthouse during a winter visit last year, and finally saw some of the interior improvements during our visit to Point Betsie earlier this month.

Flaking paint, empty rooms, and ugly linoleum greeted visitors five years ago when volunteers opened Point Betsie for public tours inside of the lighthouse as they started an ambitious preservation program.

We could see a lot of the exterior improvements the last time we stopped by for a winter visit, but it was a pleasant surprise when we stepped into the lighthouse this month to see the freshly painted walls, period furniture, and beautiful wood floors in many of the rooms. Even the tower's interior and steps wore a fresh coat of paint in marked contrast to the flaking, grey paint we saw when we last climbed the tower during a summer visit.

This time, we climbed the tower to visit the lighthouse's tiny lantern room. From the tower, we overlooked another more recently completed restoration project, the Point Betsie fog signal building. If you look closely at my photos of the red fog signal building, you can spot part of a Dumpster sitting behind the lighthouse, evidence of the continuing renovation work.

We stopped by the fog signal building later to view the historical exhibits and watch a video about the work of the lifesaving station crew in the late 1800s.

Work still continues in several of the rooms at the lighthouse and on planned exhibits. I spotted a sign in one of the partially finished and empty rooms announcing a future exhibit about the local ecology planned for that space by The Nature Conservancy, while several other spaces already housed historical exhibits.

I expressed my wish to see the interior and hope that the changes would continue to honor the site's original character. An unexpected opportunity to travel north granted my wish to see the restoration progress, and I loved seeing the lighthouse looking so refreshed and well cared for.

Check back here Friday for a few more photos from our latest visit to the lighthouse.

 

Check out my previous stories about Point Betsie's restoration and its 152-year history:

Point Betsie Lighthouse wins Michigan's Governor's Award

Happy Birthday, Betsie!

 

Want to learn even more about lighthouse and its history? Pick up the book Point Betsie: Lightkeeping and Lifesaving on Northeastern Lake Michigan by Jonathan P. Hawley. Author Hawley is president of the Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse, with his book drawing from many primary sources and including many historic photos.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Frankfort

Visiting Detroit's William Livingstone Memorial Lighthouse on Belle Isle

The marble memorial lighthouse perched on a man-made piece of land on Detroit's Belle Isle Park is unique among lighthouses in Michigan and across the nation.

I last visited this lighthouse on a quiet weekday during the early spring. We were able to park within sight of the lighthouse, but I estimated the walk back to the tower at almost a half mile.

The lighthouse makes a great photo subject, although shooting through the fence surrounding the tower presented some challenges.

I was happy to see a couple of park workers headed out to the tower at the same time I walked out there, and hoped they would let me in behind the fence to take a few photos while I was there. Unfortunately, their gate key didn't work! If you look closely at above photo, you'll see one worker (who climbed the fence to find his key to the door also didn't work) calling someone on his cell phone while his coworker remains locked out of the yard.

Meanwhile, I just stuck my camera lens through the fence and continued to shoot photos of the light tower.

The tower, designed in an Art Deco/Art Moderne style by famed architect Albert Kahn, is the only lighthouse tower in the United States made entirely of marble.

The fluted tower of white Georgia marble sits on an octagonal base and stands 58 feet tall. A bronze lantern room topping the tower brings the lighthouse's total height to about 80 feet and houses an 11,500 candlepower light visible up to 15 miles away on Lake St. Clair.

Most people best know Albert Kahn for his many industrial buildings and structures around Detroit, but he also designed other types of structures like several buildings on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Belle Isle Aquarium. The Livingstone Memorial may be his only lighthouse, as I was unable to find any other lighthouses designed by Kahn.

The William Livingstone Memorial Light, honoring the man responsible for shepherding many navigational improvements benefiting the Great Lakes as commercial shipping rapidly grew and changed during the early 20th century, is also unique in being one of only several such memorials in Michigan.

Midwest Guest readers may remember my story about the Manning Memorial Lighthouse in Empire, Michigan. Michigan's third memorial lighthouse is the tower at the Tricentennial State Park, which is on the Detroit River not far from the Livingstone Memorial Lighthouse.

Livingstone helmed the Lake Carriers Association, a group of those owning large Great Lakes ships, as president from 1902 until his 1925 death. Livingstone presided over many developments and improvements bringing Great Lakes shipping and navigation into the modern era. The Coast Guard recognized Livingstone's role in developing clearly marked channels from ships traveling the Detroit River between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair by naming the channels for him.

The Lake Carriers, and Livingstone's friends and family, decided to honor his contributions to Great Lakes navigation by building the lighthouse on the Detroit River.

Kahn received the commission to design the tower, and Livingstone's admirers raised the money needed to build the lighthouse. The project cost $100,000 and included extending the eastern tip of the island out about a quarter mile into the river.

The lighthouse was built in 1929 and dedicated in 1930, which seems pretty amazing to me when you consider the cost of the project and the fact that the timing coincided with the big stock market crash and dawn of The Great Depression.

 

Check out Where I live: Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum celebrates 50th anniversary and Great Lakes maritime lore lives on at Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum here at Midwest Guest to learn more about Great Lakes maritime history in the Detroit area and Belle Isle's Dossin Museum.

 

Want to learn more about Belle Isle and its history? You might like reading Detroit's Belle Isle: Island Park Gem by Michael Rodriquez and Thomas Featherstone.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Detroit

Point Betsie Lighthouse wins Michigan Governor's Award

I've always loved Michigan's Point Betsie Lighthouse, and I love the fact that civic activists and lighthouse lovers banded together in recent years to give the iconic site some tender loving care in the form of an ambitious restoration. So, it pleased me to see the State of Michigan give this iconic location a little love when Governor Jennifer Grandholm recently named it winner of a 2010 Governor's Award for Historic Preservation.

The red-roofed lighthouse presents a striking contrast to the long stretch of remote Lake Michigan beach and spacious skies uncluttered by surrounding development. You can see what it looked like a decade ago, and for many of the years we visited the site, in the above photo.

We discovered some changes taking place at Point Betsie as we visited the site about five years ago, and I snapped a batch of photos of the multi-year restoration then in progress.

We never saw the lighthouse open to the public until that particular visit, and were thrilled to finally be able to climb the tower and see the improvements up close. The Friends also plan to continue, and possibly extend, lighthouse summer and autumn visiting hours.

Benzie County and the Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse worked to restore the lighthouse exterior to look as it did at the end of World War II, and restored the exterior and interior of the fog signal building to its 1921 appearance.

Even with much of the exterior restoration of the lighthouse complete, work continues to raise money for projects like rehabilitating the lighthouse's interior, upgrading exhibits about the lighthouse's history and dune-based ecology, installing a lift for visitors needing assistance to access the exhibition area, improving parking at the site, replacing the temporary gift shop with a permanent on-site location, and improving erosion control at the site.

The project received a big boost last year in the form of a $225,000 grant from the National Park Service's Save America's Treasures program and also benefited from Michigan Lighthouse Assistance Program grants.

The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) established the annual preservation awards in 2003 to recognize the value of teamwork to preserve historic treasures that reflect Michigan's unique character and document the story of the state's history.

The awards also spotlight the positive economic impact represented by the investments involved in those projects. Projects recognized this year in addition to Point Betsie Lighthouse include rehabilitation of the Fort Shelby Hotel and the Argonaut Building in Detroit, rehabilitation of the Grand Rapids Water Filtration Plant, rehabilitation of Witherbee's Market in Flint, and a job re-training program in Kalamazoo that collectively represent a $248 million investment.

This last photo shows a more recent wintertime view of the lighthouse exterior where you can see the newly-restored color scheme with the black-capped tower, green accent trim, and the restored stonework along the entry stairs.

I'm anxious to return and see the progress with the interior work, and I hope the changes continue to honor the site's original character, as they have so far, so I can continue to enjoy visiting one of my favorite Great Lakes lights and beaches.

 

Check out my previous story about Point Betsie Lighthouse and its 150th anniversary - Happy Birthday, Betsie!

 

Want to learn even more about the lighthouse and its history? Pick up the book Point Betsie: Lightkeeping and Lifesaving on Northeastern Lake Michigan by Jonathan P. Hawley. Author Hawley is president of the Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse, with his book drawing from many primary sources and including lots of historic photos.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Frankfort

Robert Manning always wished that his hometown of Empire, Michigan, had a lighthouse to help guide him safely to shore after his many evening fishing trips, and his friends and family finally made his wish come true with the lighting of the Robert H. Manning Memorial Light at Empire’s Lake Michigan Beach Park in 1990.

I wondered about the little light tower when I first saw it at the park. The 35-foot-tall tower is smaller than a conventional light tower, but it is has a fully functional light beacon. The Coast Guard even included the light on their Great Lakes navigational charts.

Manning, a life-long Empire resident, died at the age of 62 in 1989. His often expressed wish for a lighthouse was sort of joke among Manning and his family and friends, but his family and friends made sure his memory and love of Great Lakes fishing lived on by raising the money to build one of just three memorial lighthouses in Michigan (the state’s other two memorial lighthouses are both in Detroit-the William Livingstone Memorial Light on Belle Isle and the small memorial lighthouse at the Tricentennial State Park on the Detroit River).

The white stucco-clad wooden Manning Memorial tower is capped by a green lantern room and railing. The structure’s design includes decorative features like grey-stained windows and a gold ball topping the peak of the light tower’s roof. The tower’s design also bears a passing resemblance to the nearby Point Betsie Lighthouse.

There is a smaller replica of the Manning Memorial Lighthouse at Lake Havasu in Arizona. That 20-foot-tall tower is part of a collection of more than 15 small scale replicas that allow the Arizona community to lay claim to having more lighthouses than any other city in America. Lake Havasu, incidentally, is also home to a recreation of an 1831-vintage London Bridge that spanned the River Thames until 1967, when Lake Havasu officials brought the original bridge’s dismantled pieces to America and reconstructed it.

The view from the Manning Memorial Light would be far more difficult to replicate, though. The light tower’s location on Lake Michigan, along the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, overlooks scenic dunes, bluffs, and white sand beach.

The Village of Empire owns the Manning light, and the light’s location in the village park is just two blocks north of the junction of Michigan highways 22 and 72 in Empire.

Check out earlier Midwest Guest stories about Empire, Michigan, including Empire, a quintessential and quirky small northern Michigan town

Curious about Arizona’s Lake Havasu? Check out Lake Havasu City: Images of America by Frederic B. Wildfang

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Manning Memorial Lighthouse in Empire, Michigan

Robert Manning always wished that his hometown of Empire, Michigan, had a lighthouse to help guide him safely to shore after his many evening fishing trips, and his friends and family finally made his wish come true with the lighting of the Robert H. Manning Memorial Light at Empire’s Lake Michigan Beach Park in 1990.

I wondered about the little light tower when I first saw it at the park. The 35-foot-tall tower is smaller than a conventional light tower, but it is has a fully functional light beacon. The Coast Guard even included the light on their Great Lakes navigational charts.

Manning, a life-long Empire resident, died at the age of 62 in 1989. His often expressed wish for a lighthouse was sort of joke among Manning and his family and friends, but his family and friends made sure his memory and love of Great Lakes fishing lived on by raising the money to build one of just three memorial lighthouses in Michigan (the state’s other two memorial lighthouses are both in Detroit-the William Livingstone Memorial Light on Belle Isle and the small memorial lighthouse at the Tricentennial State Park on the Detroit River).

The white stucco-clad wooden Manning Memorial tower is capped by a green lantern room and railing. The structure’s design includes decorative features like grey-stained windows and a gold ball topping the peak of the light tower’s roof. The tower’s design also bears a passing resemblance to the nearby Point Betsie Lighthouse.

There is a smaller replica of the Manning Memorial Lighthouse at Lake Havasu in Arizona. That 20-foot-tall tower is part of a collection of more than 15 small scale replicas that allow the Arizona community to lay claim to having more lighthouses than any other city in America. Lake Havasu, incidentally, is also home to a recreation of an 1831-vintage London Bridge that spanned the River Thames until 1967, when Lake Havasu officials brought the original bridge’s dismantled pieces to America and reconstructed it.

The view from the Manning Memorial Light would be far more difficult to replicate, though. The light tower’s location on Lake Michigan, along the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, overlooks scenic dunes, bluffs, and white sand beach.

The Village of Empire owns the Manning light, and the light’s location in the village park is just two blocks north of the junction of Michigan highways 22 and 72 in Empire.

Check out earlier Midwest Guest stories about Empire, Michigan, including Empire, a quintessential and quirky small northern Michigan town

Curious about Arizona’s Lake Havasu? Check out Lake Havasu City: Images of America by Frederic B. Wildfang

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved