Michigan Lights - Grand Island Harbor

The front range light and memories. 10/4/24 dwm

We picked up our Michigan lights with the first one east of Marquette, Michigan from where we left off. 

Two years and two weeks after the above post debuted, we found ourselves in Christmas, Michigan looking for the Grand Island Harbor range lights.

They were hiding. There was no historical marker in Christmas. After asking a local for directions, we learned that a nondescript parking lot was where we should stop.

Trees have closed off the path between the lights. These two lights helped captains into port when they could line up the light in the front range house with the light in the rear house. I couldn't see the front light until walking through deep and heavy sand.

The rear range light. 10/4/4 dwm

 These lights were authorized by Congress in 1866, but the original rear range light with a house for a keeper and a wood tower are long gone.  These lights were intended to improve safety and navigation along an 80-mile stretch of Lake Superior where deadly storms were common and sheltering ports, few and far between. The waters protected by the island offered a safe haven.

 The rear light tower was built in 1913. In 1969. the front light was modified and renamed a Bay Furnace Directional Light, then in 1983, a cylindrical tower replaced it and operates today.

 In front of the front light is a flight of cement stairs and a large cement block that could have held a mast installed in 1920 to replace the original. Thanks, as always, for historical help from the LighthouseFriends.com site.

 When the lights were proposed and through the rest of the 19th century, the area was bustling as trees were cut to build homes in other parts of the country. The community of Christmas didn't know it, but that was its hey-day. 

Christmas has a casino and hotel now, but no stop sign, just a speed limit sign to get passing motorists to slow down going through town.

After walking the path to the front light, I crossed the road and up a tree-lined driveway. On this side of the road trees weren't as thick, I saw the rear tower after walking 10 to 15 feet.

Next up, another set of range lights and then a light hiding in plain sight five miles east of Christmas.

Grand Island is off-shore, the range lights helped ships reach safety. 10/4/2024 dwm photo