Granite Island Lighthouse
Because it was positioned near the busy shipping lanes of the mid-19th century, a lighthouse was built on Granite Island in 1868 by the U.S. Lighthouse Board and commissioned in 1869.
The lighthouse keeper's dwelling and the square tower attached to it are built of cut stone with white limestone decorations on the corners and windows. The 1½-story dwelling shares its design with lighthouses found on Gull Rock and Huron Islands Lighthouse as well as the Marquette Harbor Light. There is an existing Fog Signal Building, which was constructed in 1910 to replace the one originally built in 1879. It is made of structural steel and is a bell tower. The fog bell was the one from the light at Thunder Bay Island Light, and was removed. in 1939.
Lighthouse keepers and assistant keepers operated Granite Island Light until 1937 when the facility was automated and the living quarters were abandoned. Aids to navigation consisted of a 4th order Fresnel lens and a fog bell tower. The focal height is 89 feet (27 m). At one time it had a red flash every 90 seconds.
Read more about Granite Island Lighthouse: Private Ownership, Current Status
Famous quotes containing the words granite, island and/or lighthouse:
“Your wits can’t thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You’ve no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heart-scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming!”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I suggested to them also the great desirability of a general knowledge on the Island of the English language. They are under an English speaking government and are a part of the territory of an English speaking nation.... While I appreciated the desirability of maintaining their grasp on the Spanish language, the beauty of that language and the richness of its literature, that as a practical matter for them it was quite necessary to have a good comprehension of English.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“This lighthouse was the cynosure of all eyes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)