The U.S. Coast Guard wants to spruce up Michigan’s Fourteen Foot Shoal Lighthouse. Located in the waters of Lake Huron off the coast of Cheboygan, the lighthouse was last spruced up in 2002 by the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw.
If the plans go through, the work that will be done by the Coast Guard will include repairing or replacing hinges on warped shutters, cleaning and repairing the interior of the lighthouse and lantern room, repairing glass and glazing, cleaning vents and installing new screens, and repainting of the entire exterior of the structure.
By lighthouse standards the Fourteen Foot Shoal Lighthouse is modern, having been built in 1930. Interestingly, lighthouse keepers were never intended to live in the lighthouse. With the advancement of the technology at the time, the light and the fog horn were to be controlled by the keepers at the Poe Reef Lighthouse, which was about five miles away. However, because the equipment was so new, for its first couple of years of operation, a keeper from the Poe Reef Lighthouse was assigned to the Fourteen Foot Shoal Lighthouse to monitor the experimental equipment.
With little to do the keeper at Fourteen Foot Shoal must have gotten very bored with his time. In May of 1934 the 11th District Superintendent wrote to the Acting Commissioner, “It is recommended that second assistant W.J. Miller of Poe Reef Light Station be granted permission to have his wife visit him at Fourteen Foot Shoal while on duty at this one man station, at various times as found practical from June 1 to October 31, 1934.” However, by the opening of the shipping season in 1935 the equipment at Fourteen Foot Shoal must have been working so well that a keeper was no longer needed at the lighthouse.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2015 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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