Michigan Lights - Six Mile Point

Six Mile Point Front Range Light. 10/9/24 dwm

 When it comes to range lights, I think of them as one lighthouse instead of two, because they go together and counting them twice would simply inflate the number of lights visited.

 It's not uncommon for just one range light to survive into the 21st century. 

 The survivor tends to be the rear light because it is usually the keeper's quarters.  The Saginaw River Rear Range light is the first to come to mind.

 The Six Mile Point range lights are unusual because both survived, but they aren't in the same place.

The Six Mile Range Light stands in Cedarville, MI. 10/9/24

We saw the rear range light first in Cedarville, which is south of Sault Ste. Marie on the shore of Lake Huron. 

The tower stands at Les Cheneaux Historical Museum with an old fishing boat and logging equipment.

According to Lighthouse Friends.dotcom this tower was installed in 1907 to replace the original lights on the south-bound channel.

The rear light was the 20th of 27 lights used along the Hay, now Neebish, and Lake George channels.

The front light in DeTour. dwm

 The front light was number 19, standing closer to oncoming ships to keep them in the deep channels.

 Electricity was installed in 1933. Today the range light duties are handled with a cylindrical tower in front and skeletal tower in back.

 The old lights were rescued in the 1990s, they were moved in 1991 and 92 to nearby museums.

 The front light is on the grounds of the De Tour Passage Historical Museum in De Tour Village which stands near the spot where the St. Mary's flows into Lake Huron.

 According to the account in Lighthouse Friends the pair of lights were roughly 9 miles north of Neebish Island. 

 De Tour Village is 24 miles east of Cedarville on M-134. Along the way, there were two lights off shore and a third on an island up river from De Tour. You will see them in the next two weeks.

While I was getting shots of the front range light, I saw a ship heading upstream. Ocean-going vessels are big, they look bigger on a normal size river.

If you've been checking the Lighthouse Friends site for more information, you should know the site has separate entries for the two Six Mile Point range lights because they are at two locations, the entries are identical, except for the map of the light's location.

All Photos taken in De Tour and Cedarville, MI. 10/9/24 dwm