Episode 82 - Whitefish Point Lighthouse

0:00 We're rolling. Oh my gosh. Hi everybody. I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is The Lighthouse Lowdown. Oh. Vince just went crazy. I've never seen you dance with such gusto. I just pretended it was a drum solo. Oh. I also had to try not to hit things as I was doing that. Well, you were pretty open over here. We're in the studio number five? Number six? Probably five. Maybe four. Studio South. South KC. Yeah, not even. So what episode are we on? We're on 82. 82, welcome to the show. Thank you for asking. And Vince was going to be doing our history buoy today, but I powered through and managed to create one.

0:51 And I also have one. I would like some credit for that. Credit is given. Yeah. Congratulations. Thanks. So I'm going to go into our history, Bowie. It does come up during the episode, and that's how I came up with an incredible idea, which was to cover the U .S. Lifesaving Service Stations. Cool, yeah. So you talked about them, the Lifesaving Service, before, right? Or maybe you briefly covered it in an episode. Recently we talked about the Lyle Gun and the Lifesaving Station using that. Before that, I thought you covered... I covered what is the USLHS, which has many answers, actually. Yeah, maybe you covered part of the life -saving service in there. USLHE, all that. USLSS. So I'm covering that today.

1:48 Thank you. Slightly too long. I need my headset to turn down a little. Can you do that, please? Sure can. What number? I think it's one. How's that? Much better. Blasting out my eardrums. Sorry. It's okay. Anyway. History boot. History boot. I'm in charge of this today. I did a little cover like you do. I like this. Thank you. Nice images. I didn't spell check, but everything seems to be in order, so that's good. Yeah, the images below. that I pulled up are going to be what I cover in this episode and in this history buoy. Cool. Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, they have a couple different types of service stations, so I'm going to cover all of those. The most well -known one are the life -saving stations.

2:40 So I'll pull a picture of an example of that. Carly and I went to this one near Rehoboth Beach. Called the Indian River Lifesaving Station. Okay, okay. What were you going to say? Indian River Lifesaving Station. Yeah, last episode I said Indian Point, but it's Indian River. But that was wrong. Yeah, it was so wrong. And you know what else? When I went there to get a stamp in my passport, they gave me a general stamp and not a location -specific stamp, so it doesn't even count. Do they have a location -specific stamp? Yeah, so that you can get credit for it in the passport. Damn. But they gave me a general USLSS. Yeah, if anyone doesn't know, there's a USLHS passport system where you can take the small booklet, looks like a passport, and get stamps that prove you were here and there at lighthouses. And then you can eventually turn in those stamps for patches that you can collect.

3:44 pretty sweet I'm not even remotely close to my first patch we're pretty good at it one of these days I'll catch up and the best part is that most places you can get if you prove that you were there with a photo then you can get a um you can get one of the stamps by mail so it's not not it's not a lost cause it's just that I have to do a little extra work in order to make it happen so anyway That's the example I pulled up. It's yellow and red. It's a pretty one. Yeah, it's well taken care of, which is important. Basically, the difference between all these is we've covered it in the past, so I don't go into detail about what is the life -saving station, what do they have, blah, blah.

4:27 It's just the difference between the types. Okay. So this one had a full crew and a keeper, and these were mostly along the Atlantic coastline with some... just like a couple on the Great Lakes Gulf and Pacific coast. So mostly the Atlantic coast had life -saving stations. The station would have a ground floor, like mess room, like mess hall, but like smaller kitchen and a boathouse. And then the upstairs would be dorms. And then on the top, they'd have like a cupola and a watch room, some with remote lookouts. So they would have to leave. Most places had them built into the station building. It's nice. Most notably, the stations were on really remote areas of the beach. And you've talked about this too. Because of this, the boat had to be launched over sand and into the surf. And I remember last time you had a picture of horses like towing the boat over sand. So I included a picture of the path at Indian River that they had to take down to the water's edge. So it's all sand. Not easy to get across. So that was most of them were these really remote areas. There's a lot of sand, hard work to get such a heavy boat out there.

5:37 Yeah. And push it out onto the water. And then you start the rescue. Yeah. It's like gently sloping. You know how complicated it would be to get a boat? It's not like you can just get to the water's edge and be like, all right, we'll just float it out. It's like there's waves and yeah. Yeah. It's almost always bad news. It's crazy. So the next category is lifeboat station, which is what we encounter in our episode today. I don't use pictures in the example so that I can save it for later. So I have an example from a different station, different lifeboat station. Lifeboat station. But yeah, I kept seeing lifeboat and I was like, is it the same thing as a life -saving station? It sounds exactly the same. And it's basically, there's very few differences.

6:17 It still has a full crew and a keeper. And the building is basically the same as the life -saving station. The lifeboat stations were always at or near port cities that had like deep water or piers. And so the boats would launch from a railway ramp into that water instead of it being over sand and stuff. And these are always along Great Lakes and Pacific Coast. So the Atlantic Coast didn't have really any lifeboat station. Those were all lifesaving. And these are like Great Lakes specific. So the difference is that there's no beach. Yeah, like very little sand. And it always had a ramp. And I have a picture here of what that looked like. So very easy entry into water from the lifeboat stations. That's cool. And the last one is houses of refuge, which I'm pretty sure we've mentioned these a couple times. And these are very different because they only had them on the east coast of Florida. So like very specific. I pulled up a picture of an old one. This was Orange Grove, Delray Beach.

7:24 And the reason for that is the water there never got so cold that you would be worried about shipwreck survivors dying because of how cold the water is. And that's pretty much a concern everywhere else you go is that water can get cold enough that you'd be concerned about people drowning because of the cold. But on the east coast of Florida, they don't really have to worry about that. And because the beaches are so sloping, the shipwrecks are probably from grounding and then people can make it pretty easy to shore as opposed to like the other locations where it's choppy, it's deep, like it could be from rocks or a reef or whatever. These are pretty much, you don't have to worry about collecting people from shipwrecks. They can just kind of swim up. Broken up in the open water. Yeah, so the point of houses of refuge were to give like a place to sleep, some food, and then directions to the nearest settlement. So that's what that is. Didn't we learn about these? Who are we talking to? I think it was Ralph. Yeah. Krugler? Yeah.

8:27 So tell me what happened. There's life -saving stations, which have horses. Yeah, which you're having to bring the boat over a lot of sand. And Atlantic Coast Focus. Lifeboat Stations. Great Lakes Focus. Ramps. And Houses of Refuge. Florida. Specifically. Yeah. I thought there was a fourth. No. Okay, that's why you caught me off guard. I was waiting for number four. Oh. I thought you showed four pictures. Yeah, well that one shows up later. One of the photos is later. To remain anonymous at this time. Cool. It's up here. Well, very nice. I like that. Yeah, we'll be talking about that other photo later.

9:13 And so on to the lighthouse we're talking about today. This is a listener lighthouse. So thank you, Haley, for sending this one in. We're going to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And around here, whitefish is a very popular food item. Whitefish. Huh. And the most productive whitefish fishing is at the aptly named Whitefish Bay at Whitefish Point. And so, as you can guess, that's the lighthouse we're talking about today. It's not in Whitefish, Montana, otherwise. Oh, is that a thing? Oh, yeah. Very nice area. Landlocked Montana, right? Whitefish. There's a big lake there. Oh, very cool. Oh, I guess whitefish would be a freshwater fish. It must be. Because the Great Lakes are freshwater. Flathead Lake is what's up there, I'm pretty sure. Flathead. Sorry.

10:02 Mystical. So we are here at Whitefish Point Lighthouse. Yeah, so I pulled up a map picture. You can see in reference to Mackinac City and Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, which we've covered in the past. So there's a little pin on there for that. So just in reference, the gray line that cuts through the top corner of the photo is the line of Michigan. It's like the upper part. Very close to the property line of Michigan. And then Lake Superior. Interesting. In 1846, the idea of a lighthouse on this point was brought forward because this area marks the eastern end of 80 miles known as the Lake Superior's Shipwreck Coast. So it's a pretty dangerous area. Lots of traffic, lots of fishing, and so we needed a... Lighthouse to mark the end of it. Of the 550 known shipwrecks that are laying on the bottom of Lake Superior, 200 of them are in the vicinity of Whitefish Point. Really? Almost half of the Lake Superior shipwrecks are around in this area.

11:15 That's so crazy. Isn't that wild? I saw a video last week. There was not a lot of content, but the guy was saying, people always say... The Great Lakes, Lake Superior, is like the ocean when they see it. Yeah. And then he showed, he was on the beach, I don't know where, but he's like, yep. Yep. Looks like the ocean. Like, you take a glance and it's like, eh, it's kind of rough out there. Yeah. I don't really see the other side. Really no differences when you're on the shore or even in the water. So, yeah. Giant. Is Lake Superior the biggest one? I think so. Okay. Nice. I don't think it's the deepest, though. Yeah, I've heard that the deepest and largest are different. Yeah. Like the volume of water is bigger in a different lake. I'm totally guessing. Oh, yeah. No, I have no... Do not learn from this message. Yeah, this specifically. The rest of the podcast you can learn from. Okay, sorry. I got off track. Drifted out to sea. Congress put aside $5 ,000. for this new lighthouse a year after they asked for it. How quick. I know.

12:28 Wow. Along with setting aside over 110 acres for the light station. So I'm like, that's pretty significant. 110 acres is a lot. Nice little chunk. Yeah. Chunker. Nice little chunk. Construction started in 1848. So that's promptly after setting aside money and was completed within just a couple of months. So this may go down in history as one of the fastest lighthouse process of all time. Why do you think that is? Is it because it's almost not in America? I feel like it's because, one, it's really important, blah, blah, blah. They always are. But also, it was early in the game, and so maybe it was easier for them to be like, if someone brought up the idea for a lighthouse somewhere, it was important enough.

13:12 Less red tape. Yeah, less paperwork and everything to just make it happen. Nice. Construction also was probably less. aggressively regulated in 18 yeah what is osha yeah 1849 i guess 1848 so yeah i was completed 1848 it was a 42 foot tall tapered stone tower of which i have no photos of i'm like a shame that's interesting 13 lamps produced a solid white light and they had a four room story and a half stone dwelling which was also constructed for the keepers at the same time And I do have a photo of that for some reason. Yeah, what the heck? Just to, yeah. Whoever took a picture of a keeper's dwelling or like a storehouse and not the lighthouse. Well, I'm saying at this, like by the time the lighthouse tower was gonzo.

14:07 Some story. I think they didn't really, they weren't taking pictures yet. So this is for Zillow. You think the posting was like. It was for Zillow. For Zillow. Oh. You were so excited. What's for Zillow? What's for Zillow? Is it a style of architecture? No. Sorry, I misheard. Your joke, it is funny. Yeah, thank you. Wait, let me get a sip. Thank you for narrating the second slurp. You're welcome. So they did this really fast construction, right?

14:48 They went over budget by $3 ,300, which is almost twice the allotted budget. Back then, that's a lot of budget. Yeah, that's a lot. And that amount was awarded back to the construction company a year later by Congress. So the company spent its own money finishing the lighthouse, and then Congress paid them back. I'm like, that's a lot of trust. Because I'd be like, I'm not going anywhere until you give me more money. And that's how it works today, right? Yeah, the term is retainage. If you're hiring, like, you know, I'm the general contractor and the mechanical contractor is doing the duct and all the piping and stuff. I won't pay them the last 10 or 20 % of the total contract value until all the work is done. And I've walked through and I've confirmed the work is done. Then, bloop, you know, send the Venmo, 20%. But that's a big chunk of money.

15:40 That's a big piece of contract. So in this case. The contractor at their own risk completed the work. Yeah. And then the government paid them back. Yeah. Which again. All very unlikely. I don't think that would happen today. Yeah. I agree. Because, because what leverage do you have? You're just. Yeah. Lighthouse is already there. They're like, oh, well, we didn't promise that we'd pay you back. I don't recall that. Maybe it was in the contract or something. Like if you have to go over, make it happen. But. Yeah. Crazy. I don't know. Yeah. It's just. So Whitefish Point, I don't know what it's like today, but at the time when they built the lighthouse, it was really isolated. And the first eight keepers all resigned at this lighthouse. Which is funny because we've talked about a lot of isolated lighthouses, and that didn't happen at any of those other ones. So there must have been something extra. Yeah, sometimes there's something that's not mentioned. You know, isolated. and cold isolated and obviously lonely or yeah food was terrible because you couldn't get to the supply i don't know and a lot of stone buildings were leaky and drafty and that's and they suck up all the heat yeah so suck up all the heat i don't know what that means well like the the there's no insulating value to stone so if you sit down on a concrete floor it's cold Oh, yeah. It's the same. Now, imagine the house is all stone.

17:10 Oh, you're just saying that any available heat, it would have kind of. Even if you have a stove or a fireplace. Oh, yeah. That's why people like wood. That's one of the reasons people like wood. Not warm sucking? Yeah, slightly not warm sucking. Thank you. Well, good. Snatched my coffee. For anyone interested, Vince and I are drinking the new Chips Ahoy and Nutter Butter coffees from Scooters. We are not sponsored, but we could be. We go there a lot. Well, now it's not on my route home or to work, which actually has been pretty devastating. We get a lot of different coffee. I went to the roastery yesterday, Kansas City Institution, and I had a fantastic turtle latte. What are you talking about? Where were you going? Dinner and a movie with a buddy. Oh, yeah, that's right. On your date. I was editing photos from my trip to Sweden. And I saw on our last video that we posted on YouTube, which was Fjellbecka and the archipelago in Sweden. Someone commented that they are half Swedish. They enjoyed listening and they learned a lot from our podcast.

18:29 That's so cute. They liked the photos, they said. I didn't get a message. Of that. Thank you to that individual. That's nice. You're also half Swedish. True. Well, by heritage, yes. Yeah. Yeah. What would make you half Swedish? Well, like my direct family is not from Sweden. Oh, you're saying like - It's three generations now. Yeah, generationally, yeah, you're half Swedish. But by blood, yes, I am half Swedish. Okay. That's why I'm so handsome, tall, and blonde. Wow. And humble. Especially. Okay, can I continue? Yeah, yeah, sidetrack. Okay, wow. 1857, a fourth order Fresnel lens was added, but two years later, a new lighthouse was requested by the lighthouse board. I have no information about why. I mean, it was stone, so maybe it was just leaky. And also, I have no idea what happened to that first lighthouse. I don't know if they demoed it and then built the new lighthouse in the exact same spot or... If they built it nearby, what I do know is the stone dwelling survived and stayed for a while. But I just don't know about the tower. I don't think that they were there at the same time. But I guess I have no way of proving that. Did you hear, did you read if the original tower was integral to this house? This dwelling?

19:51 Are you asking because of the big, what may have been a hole in the side of the house? Yeah. I have no clue. I have no pictures, no descriptions, no nothing. Okay. On almost the edge of Canada? Yeah. I want to say probably integral or like connected by a walkway. Because it's cold. Because it's so cold and icy that likely they would give them some kind of chance. But then how expensive, I don't know, did Demo just... Just the lighthouse? Just the tower and then keep the house. Couldn't have been that good. It's not like it was good.

20:33 I don't know. I don't know. So they built the second tower. 1857 was the Fresnel Lens. And then 1861 they finished building the new tower, which was a 78 -foot -tall iron pile brown skeleton tower. The same year that President Lincoln took office. So that's just a little reference there for timing. Hey, honest Abe. I was just thinking the other day about how you used to say, like, in this year, these things also happened. And it helped put things in a reference because I was just talking about how we've kind of lost, like, oh, that's not that old. Right. Because of lighthouse history that things aren't really in reference anymore. American history and lighthouse history. So that was when he took office. 1861.

21:16 Yeah. Cool. Lincoln's the shit. He is. He had long legs. What? Or he has a long torso. Tall hat. He was tall. This is the weirdest collection of short sentences ever. Tall hat. He was tall. Somehow related. Okay. So this tower. Oh, something very interesting, and I do have a picture of this. This tower that they built had a covered walkway from the second level of the dwelling to the middle part of the central shaft of the lighthouse. So instead of building a walkway from the first floor to the shaft of the lighthouse, they built it from the second floor to the shaft of the lighthouse. Seems unnecessarily expensive.

22:10 Because the central shaft did not continue all the way to the ground. And the why of that... Is unknown to me specifically. I don't know. But it's pretty cool. I've never once seen that before. And also the lighthouse is a lot taller and we haven't seen a skeletal tower that's so wide at the bottom. Yeah. So you said iron pile. Iron pile, yeah. So the piles are like columns that are driven or buried into the ground for foundation. to get through the sand down to something more solid. And then there's a platform on the, we call it level two. It's a little stilt action.

22:55 Yeah, it's really interesting. I don't think I've ever seen a tower like that. Because that's like 10 to 15 feet before the central shaft of the lighthouse starts. So pretty interesting. I was going to say maybe they did like, you know, the clockwork, maybe the weight dropped down below the lighthouse. No, they didn't have rotating. Yeah, they didn't have rotating. Oh, really? All fixed? At the beginning. Call me Sally. I have no idea. Oh, something else that's interesting is the watch room and the lantern room were, how do you pronounce this? Decagonal. Decagonal. Ten sides? Oh, is that deca? I thought deca is nine. Deca is ten. Okay, so ten -sided. Like a decade. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you for that. What's nine? Nine -ade. I have no idea.

23:51 Ninineal. Nona. Nona? N -O -N -A. Wow, we don't come across that very often because I would never have guessed that. A nine -sided polygon is a nonagon. Nonagon. Or enna. Enagon. E -N -N -E -A -G -O -N. Why would they change it up? What's with the switch up? So there's bi, tri, quint, quad, quint, hex. Yeah, hectagon. Seven, I think. I thought it was five. No, that's penta. Oh. Hecta. Penta. Octagon. Enagon. Nonagon. Regardless, I have not seen a 10 -sided. Why would they even do it? You know, 10 -sided. Yeah. He's measuring out with his hands. Because we always see six -sided or eight -sided, you know, octagonal or.

24:59 Why would you do 10? I don't know. Maybe it's the lantern room drove it. I don't know, but it's very special. Maybe they just wanted it to be special. I'm guessing it too many things. So it's kind of a fun. Oh, and then at that same time, they got a third order lens, still fixed white. And then two 10 inch steam whistles were added for stormy or foggy weather. One in 1872 and another that matched it perfectly in 1876. So we just like double punched. Yeah. Like that. I would have liked a dual tone, honestly, but. You think that they harmonized or no? No, not the same. But there are biphonal foghorns, remember? Yes. Oh, didn't you show a video of one that was... That we played the sound. Yeah, I like that. Very satisfying. But I wonder what the purpose... Do you think it's twice as powerful to have two of the exact same? Or do you think you just point them in opposite directions and now you're... I'm going to base this on what I do at work. If there are two air handling units, which are air conditioning boxes, and you put one of them outside of the building, there's a certain pattern you see of the noise dispersion.

26:11 Noise pollution, we have to monitor at certain distances. And if you were to put two side by side, it's not double the sound power. It's less than double, actually, but they are additive. So they're not additive one plus one. But there's an effect that happens. And there's a factor that comes in. Okay. All right, good. I mean, I'm sure that they knew what they were doing, but that was an interesting fact. Totally matching. Summer of 1893. So we're still in the 1800s. Shockingly, the fixed white characteristic was changed to a fixed white with an intermittent red flash. So we're still not revolving, but we added rotating flash panels around the Fresnel lens. So just every once in a while, there was a red. that would pass, you know, around the Fresnel lens. So you would perceive a red flash even though it was a fixed lens. Cool. Two years after that, the day mark was changed to white.

27:11 So all this time we had a brown lighthouse. And then finally they changed it to white, which you can see in this picture, the background's very open. Not a lot of trees happening. I think today there's trees, but so I don't really know. Like at what point did the brown blend in too much with the blue sky? Well, why was it brown? Was that the base metal? Bare metal was brown because iron? I was trying to find out if it was rust or if it was painted, but I couldn't. I just saw that it was brown. I'm guessing it was just bare iron, which would be rust. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. But also, what about like Bolivar Point Lighthouse, which was black because of rust? I think it was a different type of deterioration. Okay. Plus, Bolivar's on the coast of the sea. Oh. So saltwater is, I think, more aggressive when it comes to deterioration.

28:05 Agreed. And oxidation. Yeah. Of iron. Ferrous metals. Smort. Smort. Smort. We're so weird. My mom's probably listening to us from upstairs like, what a bunch of weirdos. Weirdos. Has anybody listed this garbage? So yeah, they changed it to white. And at the same time, they added a second assistant keeper position. And that was due to the workload of having a now rotating panels and the steam whistles that were added. So they had a first assistant keeper and a principal keeper, but now they added a second assistant. And the attached dwelling was changed into a duplex. So at that time, the first assistant and the principal keeper were sharing a house, like a normal house. And then they changed it to a duplex for them and built another house that was for the second assistant next door, which you can see in this current photo. That house is off to the side. Very secluded. I'd be like, actually, as the principal keeper, I think I should get first pick of a solitary house.

29:10 Yeah, but you'd have to walk in the weather to get to the work. Yeah, I guess that is kind of a downside. Plus, it's kind of small. Like, look how big, unless it has a giant porch. But the porch is like half or a third of the house. Yeah, it's a little house. It's not like they built another one of the duplexes or something. Yeah, it's a little house. It's still nice to have a spot. 1896, still in the 1800s, the light characteristic was changed to a white flash every five seconds, then to every 10 seconds, then to off one second and on one second. So this was the span over like a decade that they changed it. But changed it a lot, probably because around this time there was a lot more lighthouses popping up on the Great Lakes. Had to do some shuffling of characteristics.

29:52 Do you know any statistics regarding the sinking of boats in that area during that time? No. I wonder if anyone was confused due to any of those switches. Oh, I bet. Two years ago, I was coming through here, and I swear to God, it was a solid white. Because they would have books. They were shipkeeper books that would say which lighthouse was which. If you miss getting your new edition of your book, then it's not going to have an updated light characteristic in there. Honestly. Heck. Heckin' problems. Hey, that would be a good history buoy. Shipkeeper books. Yeah, it'd be good. If I could find any information. I don't really know how to describe. I bet you could.

30:33 Maybe I'll try then. Maybe I will. 1923. So we're jumping ahead a little bit. 1920s. The Coast Guard established a lifeboat. Saving station. So we're going back to our history buoy at Whitefish Light Station. And the light keepers often participated in rescues. There was a lot of cool stories, but I didn't go too deep into it. So pulled up a couple pictures of what this lifeboat station looked like. The big boat? Yeah. In the background, I believe that is where the people, the crew for the lifeboat station lived. So it's weirdly far away. I think that's the... It's super dark back there. Yeah. But then in the forefront of the photo, you can see the actual boathouse with the tracks leading away from it. And in the photo next to it, you can see one of the boats on the track that leads to the water. So it's like a boat on a... Like a train track. A rail car.

31:33 What are those things that are in like every Indiana Jones film? Oh. Where they're like in a mine? Yeah, the mine carts. Yeah. Except instead of a cart, it's a giant boat. Every 90s game ever had some sort of mine cart in it. It's awesome. It's kind of a beloved. I like it. But you're right. That's what it looks like. Some ropes on the bottom. Comes right out of the house. Slides right out of there. But the picture kind of shows you how big that boathouse actually is. Because from the top angle, it's like, oh, it's small. But then you see that the guys are half the size of the door. Yeah. Big garage. Yeah, exactly. That would be a great shop. Oh, yeah. I feel like we visited the life -saving station in Cape Cod. Race Point, is that right?

32:23 Yes. I think it was at Race Point. And they had some huge doors in the boat area. But I don't remember tracks being there. I don't think they had tracks. They still had to get the boat out of the house, though. It was East Coast, so I think it was... I wonder why. I mean, the weather must have been bad enough to where they wanted to store it inside. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think anything on... They still had boathouses for the life -saving stations, but because of the fact that the sand is constantly shifting, you can't have a track. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, they had no choice but to hoof it. You know what I'm saying? That's good. But they closed this lifeboat station. In 1951, so less than three decades, but I think there were some really good stories about them working together with the lighthouse keepers and making it happen. In 1936, the sea had worn away enough of the coast to, well, the coast, the shore, is it the coast?

33:33 Coast of a lake? Shoreline of a lake? Shoreline, I think, would be good. It's crazy. The coast may work as well. I'm not sure. I know. I don't know if those are specifically beachy terms or... Let's see. Oh, I skipped something. Oh, no. This needs to be touched on. 1926, which was three years after they established that lifeboat station, Whitefish Point Lighthouse had the most navigational aids of any light station because in 1926 it had a submarine oscillator. an air diaphone, and a radio beacon. And all of these were to help ships navigate around. Cool, what's a submarine isolator? I don't know. I think it was like a foghorn, but underneath. It like high -pitched where you can hear it going through the water.

34:28 That's cool. Yeah, so. Okay, now I'm going to go back to what I was saying earlier. 1936, the sea had worn away enough of this coastline to threaten the fog signal building. And so they built a new one north of the lighthouse. So a little different spot than where it used to be. And in the same year, they added five wooden pile groins to stay erosion, which I've never heard before. A groin? Long, like... I've seen those before. Yeah, wood posts back to back leading from the shoreline into the water. Like a fence. So they added, yeah, like a... long wood fence that disappears into the ocean um they added five of those and this is actually a picture of the one from at whitefish oh wow yeah so it's definitely taken a beating but i don't think that they were perfect when they were first put in there anyway like if they're just for erosion but i guess also that was almost 100 years ago that they did that so it's a cool photo i've never heard that term i know groins i've seen it i've seen it um Spelled as groins and also G -R -O -Y -E -N -S, I think. I've never heard it before. Yeah. The more you know. A little tidbit there for you. A little couple of history buoys. 1968, the Fresnel lens was replaced with an aero beacon. And in 1970, the lighthouse was automated and all personnel were removed from

35:59 the station. Tale as old as time. It's a shame. The station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, so three years after it was automated. But there was no money to upkeep or do any sort of renovation on it. And eventually the Whitefish Township reached out to the brand new Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society in 1980 asking that they take on the task of restoring the lighthouse, which is a lot to ask of a brand new historical society. I wonder if it wasn't founded for that reason. It sounded like they were requested to do it. Can you imagine they opened like a little gift shop and someone was like, hey. Would you mind taking on one of the hardest things in modern day history? We just turned a beach cabana into a shop. What are you talking about? But, of course, they said yes. And the Shipwreck Society got a lease from the Coast Guard in 1983 and had museum exhibits open within two years. So that's kind of crazy fast. That is cool. They absolutely killed it.

37:04 Took a picture of what it looks like today. Isn't it just so... Beautiful. Darn it. I hate when it's hard to choose my cover photo for YouTube. I thought of you when I picked this one. I was like, oh, this would be a good one. Either this or it's the black and white. You like them both? Yeah. Shame. It's a shame, Matt. So we're looking at a really pretty photo through some pine trees, I think. Some evergreens. Fully restored grounds with white paint. White paint, red roofs. Same for the lighthouse. Tower looks good. Really high quality photo, too. It's beautiful. Do you know what's going on these days with the tower? Is there a beacon at all? Yes. It's still flashing.

37:45 So I'll mention that in a second. They turned it into a museum. This is really cool. In 1970, the lifeboat station was like closed off and the station house and the boathouse were sold in a government auction and taken off site, which I always think is so funny is that in history, buildings are moved a lot. that they're like i want to buy this one i want to buy that big boathouse and then they ship it you know yeah from one place to another like it can't be cost effective no and a lot of times we've seen people just destroy stuff that nowadays would be like oh the history but what about the history or sell pieces and parts of things for a dollar yeah yeah an ode to one of our past episodes In 1990, so 20 years after the station house and the boathouse were taken off into private ownership, the society acquired the station house and returned it to the light station. So the station house for the lifeboat was reacquired 20 years later from a private owner and put back on the light station. So weird. I don't know how it's possible. How do you hunt down? Someone's shed probably. Oh, I bet somebody's house because it was a full station was a full house. It was so crazy. But like the boathouse was a different story. It wasn't until 2013 that the boathouse

39:15 was bought and it couldn't be placed in its original location because that part was now underwater, which is pretty crazy. And so they placed it next to the cruise quarters building, which both of those were renovated and now holds an exhibit for the early Coast Guard era. And the station house was turned into guest housing. So you can rent it if you go and visit like an Airbnb. Heck yeah. Yeah. A little bit of history. Who owns it today? The Shipwreck Society. Okay. Yeah, they own it all. So the USLHS, for those of you who don't know, also has two Airbnb properties. Maybe they don't call them Airbnbs. Point No Point. Yeah, Point No Point. And I forget the other one. It's up in Washington. Those are beautiful properties as well. It's always fun to stay in a bit of history. I didn't know about this one.

40:02 Yeah. An act of Congress officially transferred the light station of the Shipwreck Society in 1996. So yeah, they own it now. Cool. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum operates out of the light station with a brand new observation deck built in May. What? No. Oh, sorry. Hold on. The laugh soundtrack is probably the worst sound effect we have on here. It bugs me every time. Which is funny because I listen to Friends every night.

40:45 Yep. The show Friends. Okay, so they have a brand new observation deck. Yes. And obviously from the picture you can see it's very well upkept. It's nice. The lighthouse has actually been in continuous operation since 1961 when it was first built, making it the oldest operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes. 1861. What did I say? 1961. 1861. Yeah. Add a decade. Add a decade. Add 10 decades. What is wrong with us? It's Thursday. Yeah. We're going to the pub next. Oh, yeah. We are going to an Irish pub. So maybe that's what's wrong with us. We're just ready for some sausage in pastry. Flaky pastry. With some mustard dip in. I would like to visit this place. Yeah, and also, I'm not done. The light still flashes to this day, like we were talking about. Two quick flashes separated by 4 .8 seconds. And then there's 20 seconds of darkness before the next set of two flashes. So an interesting pattern, which is not similar to what it had in the past.

41:58 No. Very cool. They have a live weather cam on their website. I love it when they have live weather cams. So you just get to watch the trees sway and the people walk and the lighthouse flash. It is nice. I'm really selling it. Yeah. I got one more picture to pull up. This is down on the ground of all the buildings that are included. It's like a lighthouse village. It's like a little village. Little white houses and red roofs. I love it. And it didn't used to look like this either. They kind of, as they brought buildings back and everything, they've collected them into this little village, little society. It's nice. Yeah. Looks like a great, great visit. Yeah, so everything's been painstakingly restored.

42:42 And we have the Keeper's Count. Quarters, the lighthouse, fog signal building, and oil houses associated with the lighthouse service. And then for the lifeboat station for the Coast Guard, we have the cruise quarters, surf boat house, and lookout tower. And it also has the White Shoal second order lens on display, which is probably something I said in our White Shoal lighthouse episode. And I just forgot. Or I didn't know when I say Great Lakes Shipwreck Society. I don't know that that's referencing this specifically. Interesting. I think White Shoal is our number one viewed episode on YouTube. That's the one that's falling apart, right? That's right on the brink of destruction. I have to revisit it probably. Yeah, it's out. Red and White Candy Stripe, I think. Yep, that's it. Yeah. The cover photo is in Glacial Ice. Not Glacial Ice. I also think this is the one that had... Floating Ice.

43:41 The mercury float that degraded the inside of the lantern room. White Shoal? Yeah. Let's go check out our number one episode on YouTube. Plug, plug, plug. So they have that second order lens built in this museum in a way like the museum that we saw at Martha's Vineyard Haven. Yeah. So that museum. That was really cool. Yeah. So it's kind of in that same. Nice. You know, depends on that same way. Yeah. Second order clamshell. Very cool. And that museum's open May 1st through October 31st from 9 a .m. to 5 p .m. daily. Cool.

44:22 Yeah. And that's what I got on Whitefish Point Lighthouse. Whitefish Point Lighthouse in Whitefish. On Whitefish Point. On Whitefish Point. Whitefish Bay in Michigan. Nice. So yeah. If you want your whitefish. I don't know what whitefish is specifically. I'm not sure. We probably don't have it here. I wonder if it's like a classification. Maybe it's like a general term for like tilapia. Red meat. Not salmon. Tilapia. Oh, yeah. I see what you mean. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. No idea. We're jonesing for some Irish cuisine. So we better wrap this up. Wrap it up. Hope everyone enjoyed this episode. Another Michigan lighthouse coming at you. And another listener lighthouse. So continue to send us lighthouses you want to hear about.

45:11 We'll recover them best we can with our limited knowledge. Yep. We love the support. We love the comments. Keep them coming. Yeah. Check out our YouTube. And you can also leave us a review on our website, thelighthouselowdown .com, which we just renewed. So we definitely have it for another year. And hope to catch you next time on... The lighthouse? Whatever. That's not good. Sorry.