Lighthouses of the Apostle Islands

Part Three

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Although the light stations were built to lessen the chances that shipwrecks would occur, the hazards of navigation on Lake Superior resulted in numerous occasions when keepers would take an even more active role in aiding distressed mariners. At times, their actions were nothing short of heroic. In 1885, the steamer Prussia caught fire on the open lake off the tip of Sand Island. Lighthouse keeper Charles Lederle rowed a small boat several miles out to the burning vessel and single-handedly rescued the entire crew.

What may have been the worst day in the history of the Apostle Islands began at Sand Island only a few months after Ella Luick departed. Early on a stormy morning in September 1905, Emmanuel Luick heard a distress signal from a vessel close to shore. He climbed the lighthouse tower in time to watch the steamer Sevona break in two as it struck a hidden shoal. Passengers and crew tried frantically to reach shore on lifeboats and improvised rafts. Seventeen survived, but Luick was helpless to aid seven who perished.

Meanwhile, a similar tragedy was unfolding elsewhere in the archipelago. Just a few hours after the Sevona foundered, the schooner-barge Pretoria broke apart off Outer Island. Abandoning ship, the crew of ten nearly reached shore, but were tossed into the water when their lifeboat capsized. Sixty-one year old keeper John Irvine waded repeatedly into the surf to pull gasping men to safety; thanks to his efforts, five survived.

In recent years, advances in technology have made such disasters rare on the Great Lakes. Progress has brought change to the lighthouses as well, eliminating the need for resident keepers. In 1921, Sand Island was the first Apostles light converted to automatic operation, with an acetylene lamp controlled by a valve that responded to the sun’s warmth. Organizational shifts brought profound changes, too. The Lighthouse Service was abolished in 1939, and its functions transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard. As civilian keepers retired, their places were taken by young Coast Guardsmen, and the former homes of lighthouse families assumed the air of military posts.

It took a long time, but one by one the keepers’ dwellings were shuttered across the archipelago. The last manned station, Devils Island, was automated in 1978. Left unoccupied in the harsh environment, the buildings inevitably suffered.

With the establishment of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, ownership of the lighthouses passed to the National Park Service. Coast Guardsmen still visit the towers once or twice a year to service the solar-powered lamps, but Park Service employees and volunteers maintain the buildings and guide visitors around the sites.

Caring for historic lighthouses is a big job, and taxes the park’s resources, but the agency has made steady progress preserving the sites. Few tasks have been bigger than the one the N.P.S. tackled in 2002. Engineering studies showed that erosion of the cliff below the Raspberry Island lighthouse had begun to present a serious threat to the site. If nothing were done to halt the process, the building might be lost within as little as ten years. The Outer Island light faced a comparable, though less immediate, threat. Plans call for a multi-faceted erosion control strategy, combining construction of  revetments at the base of the cliff and slope stabilization through the planting of carefully selected vegetation.

The light stations of the Apostle Islands hold many stories from all the years they’ve guided sailors on the waters of the world’s greatest lake. It’s encouraging to think that, with the proper care, the lighthouses will be around to tell their tales for a long time to come.