Au Sable Light Station

Welcome to the Au Sable Light Station within Pictured Rocks NationalLakeshore. We hope your visit is a pleasant one. Take a few minutes while youare at the light to read this brochure. Linger on the beach and listen to thewaves pounding the beach. Think about the people who have lived here, andthe stories they have told. Return on stormy days when the surf is up. Imagineships rolling in the turbulent sweetwater sea of Lake Superior with the Au Sablebeacon glowing in the night…

1920

CoastingWild and unforgiving, Lake Superior has al-ways filled sailors with dread. Howlingstorms, hull-smashing reefs, and deathly-cold water awaited unlucky mariners. Thosethat survived a wreck often found only bit-ter solace in their landfall.

The portion of Lake Superior’s coast withinPictured Rocks National Lakeshore typifiesthe wildness of the shoreline in the 1800s.Unsettled, with sheer cliffs, unbroken for-ests, dangerous reefs, mariners referred tothe area as the “shipwreck coast.”

With the discoveries in the 1840s of copperin the Keweenaw Peninsula and iron nearMarquette, migration to the region in-creased dramatically. Lake traffic carryingraw materials to industrial centers downlakeand immigrants uplake grew from a trickleto a flood with the opening of the Soo Ca-nal in 1855.

The vessels that plied the blue waters ofLake Superior were shallow draft boatspowered by the wind, steam or both.

Equipped only with compasses and asailor’s dead reckoning, ships’ mastersnavigated by keeping land in sight. Thispractice was referred to as “coasting” andwas common for ships bound from the“Soo” to Munising or Marquette. Forsteamers, both those with paddle wheelsand propellers, frequent stops werenecessary to pick up the cordwoodneeded to fire their boilers.

“Coasting” only added to the dangers ofsailing Lake Superior. The interplay of landand water frequently produced intense fogalong the coast. Dangerous reefs and loom-ing headlands could place a ship in jeop-ardy in a matter of moments–hazards ofsailing too close to the shoreline.Coastingalso reduced a ship’s maneuvering room. Ifa strong northerly blow came up, a ship un-der sail or steaming with an underpoweredengine could be forced by wind and waveonto a shoal or beach, often resulting inthe ship being battered to pieces.

Steamer Herman Hettler

As early as 1622, when Pierre Esprit Radissoncalled it “most dangerous when there is anystorms,” Au Sable Point was recognized asa hazard to Lake Superior mariners. ThePoint is actually a shallow reef of sandstoneof the Jacobsville Formation which extendsnearly a mile into Lake Superior. This reef,which in places lies only six feet below thesurface of Lake Superior, was one of thegreatest dangers a captain faced when coast-ing the south shore.

Besides the offshore sandstone reef, the areawas infamous for thick fog caused by theinteraction of cool lake air with warmer airrising from nearby Grand Sable Dunes. Theresulting fog could completely obscure theshoreline, hiding the landmarks that lakecaptains of the 1800s used for navigation.

These factors of reef and fog, snow andnorth wind, combined with the practice ofcoasting, proved Au Sable Point to be anatural ship trap.

Ship TrapShipwrecks and YouAlong the beach west of the Au Sable LightStation are the remains of three lake ves-sels trapped by the sandstone reef of AuSable Point. These wrecks–from west to eastthe Mary Jarecki, Sitka, and GaleStaples–tell a poignant story of trial andloss and the dangers faced by those whosailed the Great Lakes.

These pieces of shipwreck are a part of ournation’s heritage. Please do not deface orremove any of the wreckage as it is pro-tected by law. Any person causing harm tothese artifacts will be subject to a fine andpossible imprisonment.

Grand Sable Banks and Dunes

Station LayoutThe Au Sable Light Station possesses a land-scape that is a significant representation ofa late-nineteenth and early twentieth-cen-tury Great Lakes light station. Layout ofthe Au Sable Light Station followed a utili-tarian design based on organizational man-dates of the time. Major buildings wereconnected by a network of sidewalks, link-ing not only the structures but the dutiesof the keepers.

As you stroll the grounds remember thatthe site has seen numerous changes over theyears. Buildings have come and gone, andthe nearby vegetation has changed. Keep-ers worked to maintain an opening near thestructures so wildfire would not spread tothe buildings. The National Park Servicehopes to restore the vegetation to an early1900s appearance in the next few years.

“It will be seen that Mr. Beedon states thathe has made improvements in the natureof clearing the land around the lighthousestructures at the station where he has beenemployed, thus saving the public propertyfrom destruction when the surrounding for-ests have been on fire, for which service hethinks he is entitled to compensation.”

Official response to a request for compen-sation by Keeper Beedon, 1879

Boathouse

FogSignalBuilding

Ga-rage

North Country Trail

Keeper’s Privy

North Country Trail

Metal Oil House

Brick OilHouse

Assistant Keeper’s Privy

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AssistantKeeper’sDwelling

Keeper’sDwelling

A Keeper’s LifeLife for the keepers of Au Sable was gener-ally one of routine and monotony. Isolatedfrom civilization, the nearest village, GrandMarais, was 12 miles to the east by foot trailor 8 miles by boat. Those who could notappreciate or tolerate isolation did not lastlong. Even construction of the road to thestation in 1939 did not end the feeling ofisolation. Serving at Au Sable was, as anearly Lighthouse Service inspector noted,“…just as isolated as if it were thirty milesfrom land.”

As a general rule, lighthouse keepers werededicated and professional. Those who be-came principal keepers achieved their sta-tions through the seniority that came withyears of service. His station was his respon-sibility; failure to keep it serviceable couldthreaten the property and the lives thatpassed by on the lake. His most critical re-sponsibility–the lamp that must burn eachnight during the navigation season–ac-counted for only a small part of the workat Au Sable.

He must maintain the station’s extensivephysical plant that included the light tower,quarters, a fog signal and its housing, sev-eral utility structures, and a few acres ofgrounds. The Au Sable keeper was a me-chanic, carpenter, painter, gardener, whooften labored around the clock, seven daysa week during Lake Superior’s shipping sea-son.

The keeper managed his accounts and thepublic property in his care, supervised oneor more assistants, and kept his records reli-giously. One of those records was his jour-nal. From those records, the story of life atAu Sable can be pieced together.

On December 8, 1876, for instance, Napo-leon Beedon described the arrival of a vio-lent and dangerous storm. A “light brees[sic]” from the south, he wrote, had beenreplaced at 5 p.m. by a “frightful storm”that “blew down 50 trees or more close bythe lighthouse” and caused him to fear that“the lighthouse and tower would blowdown as they shook like a leafe [sic] thewind was N.H. West snowing and feesint[sic] it was the worst storm I ever saw onLake Superior.”

While storms, shipwrecks, and the occasionalvisitor provided moments of excitement,boredom and loneliness were a far morecommon emotion. To help interrupt thatboredom, light-house tenders delivered cir-culating libraries to stations along the GreatLakes. Au Sable received a library in 1878.

Keeper and Mrs. Arthur Taylor

Holidays presented particularly vivid re-minders of isolation away from family andfriends. During a rare year of occupationthrough the winter, Keeper Herbert W.Weeks wrote on December 26, 1897, “Thishas been a very lonesome Christmas.”

Besides reading, routine was used by thekeepers and their assistants to stave off theeffects of loneliness and boredom–and apoor evaluation by the district lighthouseinspector. Watch duty in the light tower andmaintenance of the Fresnel lens and lampconsumed many hours each day. Crewspainted the buildings almost yearly and keptthem clean as possible. Maintenance on thetramway apparatus, fuel tanks, and engines,pipes, and boilers in the fog signal housealso kept personnel busy. Because of its iso-lation, routine duties like getting suppliesand mail also occupied a lot of time, as didgrounds care and wood cutting.

Life at the station had its human, and some-times sad side as well. On October 29, 1896,a cryptic entry in the station log noted that“on the 29th day of Oct. Gus Gigandet, theprincipal Keeper died after an illness of 2weeks.” Two years later, Gigandet’s succes-sor, Herbert W. Weeks, had his own trag-edy. The entry for September 30, 1898, re-corded: “The Principal Keeper left his Sta-tion to go to Grand Island at 8 a.m. for toBury one of his Children. Partly Clear FreshBreeze North West.”

Page from keeper’s log

By the early 1870s, following several wrecksand near-wrecks in the area, mariners andtheir allies in the press began to urge that alight station be built between Grand Islandand Whitefish Point. The Marquette Min-ing Journal, for example, said on July 29,1871, that “in all navigation of Lake Supe-rior, there is none more dreaded by themariner than that from Whitefish Point toGrand Island.” The Eleventh Lighthouse Dis-trict agreed, noting in its 1871 annual re-port that a light was more a necessity at AuSable Point than at any other unprotectedlocation in the district.

Congress acted in 1872, appropriating$40,000 for a lighthouse at Au Sable. TheState of Michigan sold 326 acres of land tothe federal government for the light sta-tion at a cost of $407. Work began the fol-lowing year and continued into 1874. In lateJuly, 1874 the Light House Board released aNotice to Mariners announcing, “Notice ishereby given that on or about the night ofWednesday the 19th day of August 1874 afixed white light will be exhibited from thenew brick tower at Big Sable Point…”

As was common for the U.S. Lighthouse Ser-vice, the tower at Big Sable (the name waschanged to Au Sable in 1910) was not aunique design. Built on the same plan asthe 1874 Outer Island Light in the ApostleIslands of Wisconsin, its whitewashed wallsand black-trimmed tower made it an easilynoticed landmark.

“Notice is hereby given…”The tower is 86 feet high measured from itsbase to the rooftop ventilator ball. At itsbase the walls are over four feet thick whilethe wall at the lower lantern room is overthree feet thick. The tower foundationconsists of rubble masonary lying on bedrock23 feet below the surface!

tower blueprints from 1874

Restoration efforts at the station began inearnest in 1988 with initial historic investi-gations of the double keeper’s quarters andlight tower. These activities included paintand plaster analysis, researching historicroom sizes and uses, and shingle detail.Projects included fabrication and installa-tion of missing interior wood trim, restor-ing the walnut balustrade and repairing theplaster walls and ceilings.

Since 1988, several of the structures havebeen painted, both inside and out. Doors,windows and screens have been restored,and the front porch on the double keeper’squarters was reconstructed to the 1909-1910 period. In 1988 an Historic Ameri-can Buildings Survey crew measuredthe buildings which led to detailedstructural drawings.

During the summer of 1992,the light tower lens room ex-terior was painted the historicblack color and the lens roominterior was restored. In 1993the interior of the tower waspainted and work in the lensroom completed. In 1994, rep-lica linen curtains were hungin the lens room. In 1996, areplica chimney cone was in-stalled in the lens room andthe original Fresnel lens wasreturned to Au Sable.

Landscape restorationprojects are underway atthe station. Please usethe stairs west of thegarage to access thebeach and station.

RestorationThe Fresnel LensInvented by the French physicist AugustinFresnel in 1822, the lens which bore hisname revolutionized lighthousetechnology. Far more efficient thanearlier lighting equipment, the lens waseasy to use. Short of neglect, it wasimpossible to not show a good light.

The Fresnel lens (fray-nell) was a circularglass lens surrounding a double wick lamp.Its rays were refracted by the prisms andreflective bull’s-eyes into concentrated

parallel rays aimed in the desired direc-tion. Manufactured in seven sizes, the

third-order lens was most commonlyused on the Great Lakes. The

smaller fifth and sixth orderlenses were used to mark har-bors, such as at Grand Marais.

The Au Sable light originallyburned lard oil, but laterchanged to more efficientkerosene. The glowing mantleof the Au Sable Station wasaugmented to 6,750 candle-power after being reflectedby a 90 degree mirror througha 270 degree third-orderFresnel lens. Manufactured byL. Sauter & Co. of Paris, Francethe fixed white light was vis-ible 18 miles out on the lake.

Au Sable 3rd order lens

Changes Over TimeThe first major improvement at the stationwas in 1897 when the hand-cranked fog sig-nal was replaced by a steam-powered fogsignal. This required construction of a newcrib and seawall, a signal building, and pipesto carry lake water to operate the signal.The first signal did not work, however, andit was another year before a replacementwas obtained and put in operation. Thisended the duty of the lighthouse keeper tostart cranking when the fog rolled in.

Until a road was built from Hurricane Riverin 1939, Lake Superior was the easiest wayto access the Au Sable station. Docks existedat the station from first construction, butdue to the battering of waves and ice theywere constantly being repaired and im-proved. A tramway was installed in 1899,allowing supplies to be more easily movedbetween the dock and fog signal building.

Extensive alterations and additions weremade to the light station in 1909. Amongthese changes were additions to the quar-ters attached to the tower and new quar-ters for the principal keeper built just westof the tower. The attached dwelling wasoriginally designed for just one keeper, buthad been converted to a “double” with theappointment of an assistant keeper the yearafter the station began operation. The iso-lation and workload of the station was toomuch for one man. A third keeper, the sec-ond assistant, was assigned to Au Sable todo the additional work of keeping thesteam-powered fog signal.

Over time other improvements were madeat the station. A new metal oilhouse waserected in 1915; walkways, wells, wood-sheds, and a garage in 1954. In 1930, a ra-dio was placed at the station, and in 1935 atelephone line was installed connecting thekeepers to the outside world. By the 1930s,the quarters were modernized and the keep-ers and their families enjoyed central heat,gas cooking, electric light, and indoorplumbing.

The fog signal building is open duringstaffed tour hours. Tours are normallyscheduled between July 1 and Labor Day.

Assimilation of the Lighthouse Service bythe Coast Guard signalled the end of an era.The new Service began automating thelights to reduce operating costs and relievemen of the long, monotonous hours of iso-lation. One Coast Guard spokesman suc-cinctly summed it up. “The lighthousekeeper gave a reliability critical to equip-ment of his time. It was equipment suscep-tible to failure and needed constant atten-tion. Technology has changed. We nolonger need a man there 24 hours a day withan oil can.”

For Au Sable, the fateful day came July 30,1957 at a meeting in the Coast Guard’s NinthDistrict Headquarters in Cleveland where theannouncement was made that the lightwould be automated. As justification theCoast Guard stated “the chief difficulty withthis unit is the fact that it is remotely lo-cated some 14 miles by road from GrandMarais. The road is a tortuous path over sanddunes and through wooded areas, fre-quently made impassable by snow andwashouts. Transportation of school-age chil-dren via government vehicle over this roadto the nearest school…is unfair [to] the chil-dren.”

By this time Au Sable had the intensity ofits light reduced, its fog signal removed, anautomatic bulb changer installed, and a bellbuoy placed offshore near the shoal areas.The last three Coast Guardsmen stationedat the light were assigned to the GrandMarais Station to assist in the upkeep of AuSable.

Automation–End of An EraOn July 6, 1961 the lighthouse land was de-clared excess property by the U.S. CoastGuard to the General Services Administra-tion. In 1968, GSA transfered the land tothe Department of Interior, National ParkService, for inclusion in the Pictured RocksNational Lakeshore.

Today, the Coast Guard still maintains a lightat Au Sable. Mounted on the tower’s cat-walk is a plastic Fresnel lens containing asolar powered lamp. Maintained once a yearby the Coast Guard, Au Sable still shines itswarning to the lake’s mariners.

Current 300 mm acrylic lens

The operation of aids to navigation is oneof the longest continuous services of theUnited States government–a federal respon-sibility since August 7, 1789. The operationof the federal lighthouses was, however,nothing short of scandalous. For sixty years,contractors administered the lights with nosystem or direct control–exercising widelatitude to their care. Public criticismbrought change with the creation of thefirst Lighthouse Board in 1851.

Composed of four military officers and twocivilian scientists, the board set out reform-ing the lighthouse bureaucracy. Improve-ments in lighting systems, in supervision,and instructions to keepers were made.Maintenance and construction standardswere improved and, most importantly, newlights were established.

In 1910, the Board was abolished and itspower transferred to a single commissioner.The first commissioner, George R. Putnam,served for 25 years and was known for boththe economies and innovations that resultedfrom his leadership.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferredthe U.S. Lighthouse Service to the U.S. CoastGuard in 1939. This brought about the even-tual end of civilian lighthouse keepers andthe eventual end of manned lighthouses.Today the Coast Guard insures the safety ofnavigation with automated lights, buoys,and satellite positioning systems.

U.S. Lighthouse Service and Coast Guard

Pictured RocksNational LakeshoreMichigan

Au Sable Light Station is located 1.5 miles northeast of the Lower Hurricane RiverCampground within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Hurricane River is 12 mileswest of Grand Marais, MI, on Alger County road H-58. Visitors may also hike to thelighthouse from the Logslide, a six mile round-trip walk on the North CountryTrail. There is a $2.00 fee for guided tours (age six and older.) Proceedsfrom this fee will be used to refurnish the assistant keepers quarters.

Lighthouse visitors are encouraged to park at the day use parking area adjacentto the campground entrance. The hiking trail (North Country Trail) to the light-house begins at the gated service road at the east end of the lower campgroundloop. Bicycles are not permitted on the trail to the lighthouse. Pets are not permit-ted at the lighthouse. For information on seasonal lighthouse interpretive pro-grams, contact the Lakeshore at 906-387-3700 or visit our web site: www.nps.gov/piro

How To Get There

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