20 Sep - Lighthouse Tour Day 3

The blog is up to date!  Check out 11 Sep and our lighthouse tour in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan!

20 Sep

This morning we worked hard to get the blog caught up from when we were camping at Silver City in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  After lunch, we headed just a few miles south and east into Racine to visit the LAST lighthouse for this trip.

The Wind Point Lighthouse was built in 1880 to aid navigation around the point into Racine Harbor.  It was a simple set-up with a kerosene lamp, focused and magnified by a third order Fresnel lens, projecting the beam for 19 miles.

This is a functional lighthouse, standing 108 feet tall and is one of the tallest and oldest still providing navigation assistance in the Great Lakes.  It is still maintained by the US Coast Guard.  The fog horn has been out of service since 1964, but when it sounded it could be heard for 10 miles.

The Wind Point Lighthouse connected to the keeper's residence, which now serves as the Wind Point Police Department headquarters.

Doreen and Liberty are dwarfed by this behemoth!  Unfortunately it is only open certain days out of the year so we could not tour it.

This view is from near the shore.  Beautiful, post card picture!

Lake Michigan was angry today! 

The waves were really rolling.  I would have hated to have been on one of the concrete piers we visited the last couple days.

The fuel house, also known as the oil house.  Built in 1910.  The round holes in the upper part of the building are vent holes.  Oil was delivered by both ship and train.

This is the site of their boathouse.  It was built in 1880.  These surf boats were typically used to transport supplies from downtown Racine and could also be used for rescue if needed.  They would launch and recover on steel rails resembling train tracks.  See below

Pier and boat rails.

Fog horn house side view shows the fog horns protruding from the front.  Originally the fog horn house was two wooden structures and was replaced in 1900 with this brick structure.  

Jan 26, 1901 the fog horns first sounded in a heavy snow storm.  They consisted of a Browne 1st class auto compressed air siren driven by a Hornsby-Akroyd engine.  The two copper trumpets, protruding from above the doors, and a Crosby automatic time signal (3 seconds on out of 30 seconds)

This was the old original fog horn building built in 1880.

A great picture of the tower looking up from the shore, with Old Glory flying high and proud.

That's it for today.  Tomorrow we have visitors!!  Ernie Reid who served with me in the Air Force in Maine is driving over from Ohio to meet up with his daughter who is attending college in Chicago.  Both of them are going to accompany Doreen and I to Miller Park to watch the Chicago Cubs play the Milwaukee Brewers.  The Cubs are in first place and Milwaukee is in a close second in their National League division.  Should be a great game and will be great to see them again!  The last time we saw Ernie was last year as we cruised through Ohio and attended a Cincinnati Reds game and then later as we returned from Maine and attended a Cleveland Indians game.

Reds game!

Indians game!