Episode 43 - Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse

0:00 Ready. Is it on? Mm-hmm, it's been on. Uh, hi everyone. I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] Happy New Year's to everyone. Happy New Year's. Welcome to the new year, it's 2024. The year of Emily. No, I'm kidding. We'll see what 2024 brings. Yeah, I was really optimistic last year, and I think with the way that this year went, maybe I should just kinda see what happens. Ever since 2019, we've been on the uphill. Yeah, oh. I don't know. Not entirely true. Generally, generally up.

0:41 I think we're still going down, but the steepness. I hope not. The steepness of the descent has a, it's lessened, more shallow descent. So what have we got today for our New Year's episode? Well, I forgot to do a history buoy. Gasp. I know, it's so sad. Like, most people focus on starting the New Year outright. You know, people are putting in a lot of effort and doing what they need to do. You might as well let it finish. ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] Agreed. So I failed at that, but I at least, I have an episode, so it could be worse.

1:23 That's great. Okay. So the lighthouse that we're doing today is technically in Michigan, I believe. Technically, all right. I can't wait. It's in the lake? It's, hang on a second. Yeah, it's definitely Michigan. Okay. We're going to Mackinac. Very good. No, just kidding. Mackinac is an island. Okay. And this lighthouse is called Mackinac, but it's not on the island. It's not Mackinac Island. It's like a region then, it must be. It's, well, normally I keep it a secret, but I'll just tell you. It's old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. So there's a point Mackinac and an island. So I'm glad we ironed that out.

2:05 Thank goodness. We are the lighthouse lowdown. Story of this lighthouse goes back to 1838. Lieutenant James T. Homans sailed 1,825 miles through Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, inspecting lighthouses and locating potential spots for new lighthouses. So this guy's, this guy had a long trip ahead of him. He passed through the Straits of Mackinac and he recommended a lighthouse to mark the narrowest point. I'll pull up a photo of the area we're looking at. That's this little circle. We got our logo in a circle and it looks quite nice. Satisfying. Much better than a square.

2:45 And a rectangle. So I have it marked on here, the Straits of Mackinac. Next to Sheboygan. Our two lakes come together to a point at the top and that's where we have the Straits of Mackinac. So you can imagine it's pretty narrow compared to the rest of the lakes and there would be a lot of traffic going in between the spots. Yeah, those are very industrious cities. Yeah. Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit. Sheboygan. Sheboygan. Yeah, that's something I won't improve on in the New Year pronunciations. We're gonna see a lot of that in this episode. I think the only reason I noticed to say Sheboygan, or I think I do, is because of the Griswold family Christmas. They say that in there?

3:25 Yeah, the guy, remember she has to fly home. She rides in a truck with the Polka Polka Polka. It's not John Candy, is it? What movie are you talking about? Oh, no, no, no, Home Alone. Oh man, it's the Christmas season. It's too far from Christmas now. Yeah, and I was just thinking, that's not right. Home Alone. Home Alone. Mom rides home with the guy, the comedian, the big guy. I forget his name. I don't think it's John Candy. Anyways. I can't help you out there. Sheboygan is one of his cities he brings up. Yeah, so Polka Polka Polka. Anyway, just before we started, I'm sitting here, two minutes before we started, I found out that it's spelled Mack-a-Nack, and it's Mack-a-Naw.

4:06 I absolutely would have recorded this entire episode. Mack-a-Nack. Mack-a-Nack. I would have said it. It said I was smart, looked it up. So I'm improving in the New Year. That's, kudos to me. Straight from Mack-a-Naw. Yeah, there's the connection between the two lakes. And actually, if you zoom in on Google Maps, that little part of both of the lakes says Lake Michigan-Huron. So it's like, they're a little connection. So Lieutenant James suggested the western half of the point, since it's much higher in elevation, and in theory, it could be seen from both sides. I don't think that ended up being true because you'll see what happens. Okay, so I pulled up a picture of the point. It's just like, it's like the end of a bone is what it looks like. So on one side you have Old Mackinac Point, and on the other side you have McGulpin Point.

4:51 And I'll cover McGulpin Point sometime. I thought you said the west side. Yeah, yeah, so here's where. Initially chosen. Yeah, initially chose the western side. And since this area is so well-traveled, there's lots of lighthouses that have popped up. Even in this picture, you can see a couple of them. St. Helena Island, McGulpin Point. Wauwatam. Wow, Wauwatam. There's probably a pronunciation for that. There's several, there's so many. And just so you know, you and I have scheduled to talk about our next lighthouse trip. That's right. And I'm gonna pitch this idea to you. Oh, so you're not giving it away. So I'm invested in this episode. You have to learn how to pronounce everything. Oh, damn.

5:32 So lots of lighthouses. The western approach ended up being marked by Wagashants. Wa, Wagashants. Is this a Native American tribe? Of course. I seem to struggle most with those. Wagash, Wagashants. If anyone is familiar with pronunciation, please let us know. Yeah, I'm not gonna be offended if you correct me. Actually, in fact, it'll be a blessing anyway. And that was completed in 1851 at the same time that the Sheboygan Lighthouse was completed, which marked the southeastern entrance to the street. So they still hadn't reached, putting one on the narrowest point.

6:13 And it wasn't until 1865 that the Lighthouse Board started pushing for a lighthouse, and they suggested one at Fort. Mishili Makanah. Mishili Makanah. Okay. This is when they built McGoopen Point Lighthouse. So old Makanah hasn't even come into play yet here. And they built McGoopen Point on McGoopen Point, two miles west of the fort, which was completed in 1869. So the fort, with the picture pulled up, it's right where it says Makanah City. That's where the fort was. Okay, that's two miles. Yeah, so exactly. They're so close. So two miles.

6:54 I was thinking it was a lot closer than two miles. Yeah, oh. So that bridge is. Oh no, I'm gonna talk about. Six-watt-some-miles. I'm gonna talk about it. You're not even on coffee right now. I know. McGoopen Point was built, but the light was not visible from the east, or at least not very clearly visible from the east. And in 1888, the board wanted to move McGoopen Point Lighthouse to old Makanah Point. Okay. Congress approved money to build a new lighthouse on the point instead, with the stipulation that McGoopen would be discontinued, or you know. Retired. Yeah, retired.

7:34 And the board fought against that and won the right to keep both, because Makanah Point is only like eight feet above sea level. And McGoopen Point, which is only a couple of miles away, is 70 feet above sea level. Okay. So it would be a disservice to build a new lighthouse so that it could be seen from the east and suddenly not be visible from the west. They're like, no, we need both lighthouses. So hold on. Someone's idea was to move the lighthouse. Yeah. Congress said no, build a new one, but you can discontinue the McGoopen Point. Yeah. And then someone else said we need both. No, lighthouse board said no, no, no, we're not saying. Oh, the lighthouse board said both. Yeah, they're not saying. I see Congress is being all stupid. Yeah, Congress just doesn't know what they're talking about.

8:15 Okay, just dish out the money and leave the thinking to the lighthouse board. Lighthouse board, yep. So after all of that, old McGoopen Point lighthouse was built only a couple of miles away from McGoopen in 1892 by John P. Schmidt for just over $13,000. And that's how he ended up with two lighthouses basically right next to each other on this point. Nice. Yeah. I'll cover McGoopen. They're built in the same, they're the same vibe. I'll show you a picture. But old Mackinac Point light station consists of the lighthouse, a keeper's dwelling, or maybe two, oh no, yeah, one keeper's dwelling. That's like a duplex, but it's very fancy. I'll show you. A barn, an oil house, and a fog building.

8:56 Look at that. That is cool. Isn't that beautiful? That's awesome. I can't remember what they said. It's sad. I really wish I could remember what they described this style of architecture as, but basically it's castle. Yeah, so people who aren't looking at the images, it's like, it's in black and white, but limestone, white brick, large cuts of rock. Yeah, very. And like a metal roof? Yeah, metal tin and it's bright red. Oh, cool. Yeah, so the whole thing was built to look like a castle really. That's the top flat parts of some of the, like around the house are very square with the slits cut in them for like water flowing through.

9:37 For archers, yep. Oh, yeah, very tall, very skinny windows, which I feel like would be very crampy. But it works. Yeah, so the tower is 13 feet and four inches wide and it's cylindrical, but doesn't taper like normal lighthouses. So it makes up the northwest corner of the dwellings. And so it's connected to the dwellings by a, what is it called? A service, like a service room. Yeah. Yeah, so then you can access the tower without having to go outside. It's 50 feet tall to the focal plane. I wanna say it's like 60, I can't remember. So it's, I think 57 feet to the tip of the lightning rod.

10:18 Okay, nice. And it's made of buff colored brick on a base of limestone ashlar. What is buff colored? Buff is, it's just like a tan. Okay. The light has a circular gallery and an octagonal lantern room with a fourth order revolving lens that produced a red flash every 10 seconds. And they changed that to white in 1913. The lens had 10 flash panels and was rotated with a weight that had to be re-round every three hours. So the clockwork was run by a counterweight. So this, okay, this tower, I'm thinking about the height of it, is a lot taller than I thought it was gonna be. Cause you said the elevation's only eight feet. Yeah. Off like the earth elevation, above sea level or above water level.

11:01 Above, yeah, water. Okay, above the lake. But yeah. And then this is a focal plane of 50 feet. Do you know MacGuffin Point? Is it a lot taller? What's? Isn't it MacGuffin? MacGulpin. MacGulpin. Unless I'm pronouncing it wrong. Are you scared? You scared me. You didn't say anything. No, I'm just sitting here like, you know. MacGulpin. Thinking. I bet it's pronounced a different way. It's the one I didn't look up. So MacGulpin for the moment. Do you know the height of that one? It was a high. Obviously they have different flash patterns, right? So. Yeah, let me look it up. So it's 38 feet tall. So almost exactly the same. Total above sea level is something like 100 and something feet.

11:44 Oh wow, because it's. Yeah, 102 feet to the focal plane. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. These gentlemen in this photo look so proud. They always do. Everyone stand around. And honestly. The talk of a man's taking a picture. This picture was taken in 1892. So that's a very old photo, which means they probably had to stand there for a while. Did a pretty good job. Yeah, it's really excellent photo. I mean, it looks like it could be a current day photo in black and white. Also, if you look at like modern day brick layers. Yeah. Like some guy comes up and he starts his own business at the age of 18. And then they're like, oh look, we put brick in front of this guy's garage. Wow, that's like their website.

12:25 And then you show like, look at these guys. Look, they built a castle. A castle that serves a very important purpose. Like that's it's crazy because it's not just artistry. And it's so cool. $13,000 was the lowest bidder for building this lighthouse. Just crazy how much effort they put into visually appealing lighthouse. Yeah, look at the round windows at the top. Big fan. It's all this lighthouse. Everyone really seriously, please go look it up. It's life changing. So I'm sorry, I keep interrupting you. Okay, we're talking about the red roof. So the dwelling is arranged as two story houses under one roof.

13:07 And they're connected in the middle by a small lobby. I'm like, how fancy is this? And that's also connected to the service room. So you can access the tower without having to go into anybody else's space or go outside. That makes sense. Yeah, so lobby to service room to tower. And then they separate. Very nice. After completing the lighthouse, the board noted that the fog signal building was too close to the dwellings and needed to move away 50 feet. 50 feet's pretty far. Did they note it because the building was shaking and there was fog? They must have complained. Is it a bell or a horn? At this time, I would think.

13:48 Probably a foghorn. I didn't make any note, but it may have been steam whistle. Too close, needed to move it away. This is almost the 1900s, so probably a steam whistle. But it's just 50 feet away is notable. That's 50 feet. Yeah, it's like I ride down nine times. Like when these plans were all laid out. And the other thing is that the fog building was only seven and a half feet from the edge of the property. So were you just trying to squeeze it in and didn't care about the 50 feet? I don't know, it's a failure. Get it built. So they needed to buy land in order to move the foghorn to an acceptable distance. And that land belonged to the city of Mackinac.

14:30 Mackinac planned on using that space for a public park. And so they said, no, you can't have it. We don't want your foghorn there. So you know that's gonna work out for the city of Mackinac to be like, no thanks. We were actually planning on a park there. So get out of here with your usefulness. You want a park that looks at your nice lighthouse. I'm like, no, thank you. So condemnation proceedings started in 1889 and the judge ruled $400 was adequate for the land. City of Mackinac objected a year later, being like, no, $400 is not enough. And the court took four years after that to decide that $400 was in fact a fair amount to pay for this land. So they were stuck with this foghorn building.

15:12 They didn't have any inflation back then. 50 feet too close. Four years going by and the land being worth the same amount of money. With how much stone this castle, that's what I was thinking too. I'm like, after all of this time, it definitely appreciated in value. The lawyer bills accumulated to 12 cents. I could hardly pay for it. Poor city of Mackinac. They just wanted to fight for themselves. No way. So anyway, in 1906, a new fog signal building was built with the old one moved behind the station and used for storage. So they didn't raise it or anything. They just moved in and repurposed it. But yeah, from when they decided it was too close, it took like a total of six years.

15:55 That's crazy. I can't imagine waiting six years for you to move the giant steam whistle 50 feet away from me. I know. It was the same guy. He was probably like, I would love to get out of here. It's probably a manual back then too. Yeah. They got to pull a string and it's like, you know, whatever the sound would be. Pull a string. Like it's a toy. Yes. I... That is not what I meant. But I like that pull a string and then it would just set off an explosion of steam into that whistle. And then they would lose some hearing. Six years. Okay. Okay. And then... Well, so the first part of this lighthouse, there was a headkeeper position and an assistant position. It's from 1890 to 1909.

16:37 And then at that time, a second assistant position was opened. So there's only four headkeepers total over the span of this lighthouse is 67 years in service. With 67 years is pretty short compared to some of the other lighthouses that we've covered. Yeah. The first headkeeper was George W. Marshall who spent eight years at Wag... Wagachance. Wagachance Lighthouse before that. And then he was relocated to here to be the first keeper. He was one of five sons of William Marshall who is the ordnance sergeant at Fort Mackinac. Michilly, Michilly Mackinac.

17:20 And all five of those sons became lighthouse keepers. So I don't know what happened. From explosives to lighthouses. That a sergeant at a fort would have sons that all went into lighthouse keeping. Maybe they only had a couple of children's books. One of them was... In 1900, Charles Marshall, which was one of George's brothers, was stranded on a, is it Boatswains chair? I don't know. He's stranded on a chair. Yeah, he was paint, he was the keeper at St. Helena Island Lighthouse. The one that was in the corner of the image that I showed you of the maps. And he was painting the side of the lighthouse and got stranded in his chair.

18:01 Oh no, his chair got stuck. Yeah. And he died. No. He fell and died. But it devastated his mental health. Oh. So it kickstarted him. Like he ended up in an asylum. Oh no. Yeah, it's very sad. So I couldn't find the story of what really happened, what happened up there or how long he was stuck up there or the story. But basically he got stuck and couldn't be head keeper anymore. He needed assistance. And so he moved over to Old Mackinac to serve as George's first assistant keeper. And the first assistant keeper at Old Mackinac moved over to St. Helena Island Lighthouse to be the head keeper.

18:44 Okay, nice. So it's just a little swap. So his health deteriorated for two years until he had to be hospitalized at Northern Michigan Asylum. And as far as I know, he passed away there because I couldn't find, he didn't enter back into the lighthouse world or anything. So he didn't check out. Exactly. Yeah, so George and his wife, Margaret, adopted some of Charles' children when he was institutionalized. Okay. And one of them, Chester, became a lighthouse keeper and served at, no, I forgot to look this one up, Manitowoc for 30 years. So can you believe that? Manitowoc. Manitowoc, of course.

19:25 That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm just saying. For 30 years. So third, no, just second generation. Yeah. And he had another job, sorry. No, it's good. I was launching it. You had another job, Charles? No, Charles had another adopted son named James and he also became a keeper and served at White Shoal Lighthouse until George retired in 1919. And then he took over as head keeper at Old Mackinac. Family business. I know. A stroke forced his retirement in 1940. So he served at the lighthouse for a total of 21 years after his dad retired from this lighthouse. So I'm pretty sure in total, the marshals served for like 40 something years at this lighthouse.

20:06 That's crazy. Yeah. So for the next decade, Henrik Olsen served as head keeper followed by John P. Campbell until 1957. And at that point, the Mackinac Bridge was completed, which is that really long bridge that you wanted to estimate the distance of. I was like, no. I didn't do like a lot of coverage on it. But because the bridge was built, it's five miles long. Because. It's close. I know. Because it had so many lights on it, like it's very well lit, they decided to put the lighthouse out of service. Wait, because you didn't need it because you could see the bridge?

20:47 Because you could see the bridge. Oh my gosh. And it was like. I did not see that coming. Yeah. So that's why this lighthouse service was so short is because they deemed it unnecessary after the building of the bridge. Just the one? No, yeah. Just Old Mackinac. Just Old Mackinac? I know because it's literally the beginning of the bridge and the lighthouse are within like a five minute walk of each other. So. Well. It's kinda, I mean, I guess. I guess. Just kinda sad. I would prefer to have a lighthouse. So when was that? That was in 1957. Okay. That's not bad for lighthouses. It's early to discontinue, but by then the Coast Guard had taken over control of beacons and so I'm sure they were like excellent.

21:33 Yeah. So what happened after 57? So in 1960, Mackinac Island State Park Commission purchased the lighthouse and restored it for $70,000 and opened it again in 1972 as the center of Michilly Mackinac, Michilly Mackinac Maritime Park. Cool. You can just have a kick out of me trying to pronounce everything. Unfortunately, they had to close in 1990 just because they didn't have budget and I think it just wasn't kicking off as much as they were hoping. 18 years, yeah. But in 1996, fundraising was launched by Jim Belial, I wanna say his name is, whose great grandfather was John P. Smith, which is the one that built the lighthouse.

22:19 Okay. I feel like I've heard Belial before. It's just a common last name, I don't know. I didn't look it up. I feel like Belial's not very common. But his great grandfather was Smith. Yeah. Okay. After $2.2 million of restoration, they opened again in 2004 and it has an amazing view of the Straits of Mackinac and they play like shipwreck movies in the barn. So when you visit, you can go in and take a seat. They have the original fourth order lens for you to look at. You can climb the tower. It's all very fun. That's insane. So did they take this on 1990 until 2004? It was late 1990s to 2004.

23:01 I think in 2000, it was open. It was maybe open or the Fogsville building was open. I didn't make a note of which one it was. That's wild. $2.2 million. They partially opened in 2000 and then 2004 was when you could actually go and like start climbing the lighthouse and stuff. I'm not sure if they've used the 2.2 million or if that's what the budget is needed to completely restore it. Where did this guy get $2.2 million? It was all fundraising. Interesting. Or maybe he's rich. That's a lot of money. I mean, you said $70,000 was spent in 72. In the first one, yeah. And then in 1990 was when they closed those doors. So I was like, yeah, 70 grand. Yeah. Easy. 2.2 million.

23:41 I guess, I mean, I don't know this area at all but I'm guessing that that is some prime real estate as well being right on the water, right on the bridge. Historic value. It's got a steam whistle. Oh, it's beautiful. It's so pretty. And so there's the Mackinac Bridge in the background. So I mean, it's like a five, it takes five minutes to get there. That is a big bridge. Isn't that crazy? You look up pictures, it's just like, it's like following the curvature of the earth. Beautiful grounds. All right, that's dramatic, but still. Beautiful grounds. Yeah, they do a really great job. White picket fence. The red roof is really, really nice. We love red. Are we still building stuff today that's gonna be around and kept special like this?

24:22 Of course not. It's unbelievable. I mean, we've needed to restore like all the lighthouses, but I'd need a lot more help if we were building these today. It's 2024. People are listening to this. So in the year 2200, someone's gonna be spending 18 gazillion dollars to restore something we built today. I don't know. Oh, doom and gloom. It's special. Oh, I don't mean to say that now it's trash. I just mean like, this is really cool. Well, I'm just hoping that in the future, these things will still be upkept. Be so sad to see them go. Yep. No, it's not so sad. So today you can still go see it.

25:02 You can climb the lighthouse. You can see a movie in the barn. And another thing is that there's a, it's just a little motel, but it has excellent reviews that is a five minute walk from the lighthouse. So you're basically right next to it. I think McGulpin Point, you can also stay in a Keeper's Cottage near that. But this is not about McGulpin. So anyway, this area is like, you could stay here. And I think it'd be really cool for looking at lighthouses. Yeah, very pretty. Do you know, I'm still looking at this photo, what those round windows are for? Are those just windows that go like porthole windows? I bet they're, it's a watch room where you watch for storms.

25:44 Man, that looks strong. That's what I'm thinking is because you're barely above sea level and you're right on the edge of the lake here, it's probably gets some waves. Yeah. I don't know. I would have built the residence a lot taller. Yeah. Or no windows on the first floor or something. I do, I wonder if it floods often. Like, well, the lakes don't, the lakes don't rise a lot, do they? I don't know. It's not like flooding. I guess I don't know. It is a lot of water. We're pretty far removed from any water. We don't know what we're talking about. We're not nautical people, you know. Only in the heart.

26:25 Yeah, good job. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to everybody. Thanks for listening in and hope that you stick around with us this year because we're gonna keep doing this regardless of what's going on. Did our winner of our giveaway respond? Yes. Yeah, she's going to get her cup. Very good. I'm just glad, for those of you who don't know, we just did a giveaway. Yeah. Lasted only like two weeks. That's all we gave people in December to enter to get a Stanley Cup. Not the hockey award, of course, but not the hockey trophy, but a cup from the brand Stanley with the new Lighthouse logo.

27:07 Lighthouse, Lowdown, logo. What is that? Laser etching? Yeah. Pretty neat. We'll do more giveaways and swag in the future. Glad to know that recipient will get their Stanley Cup. Yeah, and thanks for everyone who entered and was interested and listened to our Cape Disappointment episode. That was really cool. It was a good episode. YouTube had a good turnout. Yeah, YouTube went crazy on that one. So anyway, we hope that you will continue to join us this year and, oh no, it's coming, and, uh, I wasn't ready.

27:51 I guess I suppose I don't need to go into the whole thing, but check out our website, thelighthouselowdown.com. You can send us an email or a voicemail or something and tell us any Lighthouse that you want us to cover. We want, I mean, our goal is to cover them all. So all you have to do is send us a name and we'll follow up on it, do all the research and you can hear us talk about it. You can also follow us on Instagram. We're on YouTube. If you check out our website, you'll be able to find us on all of those. LinkedIn. LinkedIn, yes. LinkedIn as well. In case you want to be professional. All right, so I guess that's it. We hope you enjoy listening and we'll catch you next time on The Lighthouse. Go down. maarikosm