Outer Island Light
The Outer Island lighthouse is a lighthouse located on the northern tip of Outer Island, one of the Apostle Islands, in Lake Superior in Ashland County, Wisconsin, near the city of Bayfield.
The light was designed by United States Lighthouse Board Eleventh District Chief Engineer Orlando Poe and constructed under the supervision of his successor, Godfrey Weitzel.
Currently owned by the National Park Service and part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, part of reference number 77000145. It is listed in the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey, WI-318. The lighthouse is attached to a two-story, red brick keeper's quarters.
On September 2, 1905, Outer Island Keeper John Irvine performed a heroic rescue, when the 337-foot, three-masted schooner-barge Pretoria lost the line to its towing steamer Venezuela during a fierce storm. The Pretoria attempted to anchor about 1.5 miles off the island, but when the ship began to break up, the ten-man crew attempted to flee in a lifeboat. Sixty-one-year-old keeper Irvine was alone on the island, his assistants having gone to town, but when the lifeboat flipped in the surf, he waded into the waves and rescued five of the ten men. On that same night, the steamer Sevona also sank in the Apostle Islands, striking a reef near the Sand Island Lighthouse, with the loss of seven men. This double tragedy preceded the better-known Mataafa Storm by several weeks.
In 2004–2005, the National Park Service undertook a significant erosion control project at Outer Island, to stabilize the bluff which had proved susceptible to erosion since the station's earliest days. The project followed a similar effort completed the previous year at the Raspberry Island Lighthouse, and consisted of a three-part strategy: armoring the cliff base with a massive stone wall; improving drainage on the upper grounds to prevent runoff from undercutting the clay bank; and stabilizing the bluff face with "bio-engineering", i.e. planting carefully selected vegetation to anchor the slope. The rock wall at the bottom and drainage system at the top were completed, but a shortage of funds required scaling back the bio-engineering plans, and only the most critical sections of the bluff face were treated.
Read more about Outer Island Light: Getting There
Famous quotes containing the words outer, island and/or light:
“When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When you take a light perspective, it’s easier to step back and relax when your child doesn’t walk until fifteen months, . . . is not interested in playing ball, wants to be a cheerleader, doesn’t want to be a cheerleader, has clothes strewn in the bedroom, has difficulty making friends, hates piano lessons, is awkward and shy, reads books while you are driving through the Grand Canyon, gets caught shoplifting, flunks Spanish, has orange and purple hair, or is lesbian or gay.”
—Charlotte Davis Kasl (20th century)