Episode 88 - Point Betsie Lighthouse

0:00 Hey, hey, hey, it's Lighthouse Lowdown. Hi, everybody. I'm Emily. I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. It kind of started before I was ready. I mean, I'm ready, but... Yeah, I didn't mean to put my singing... the lighthouse thing in there, but you know, it's a good start. I was like, well, it's better now than, than later. So there's some chaotic energy. The university of Kansas is about to play a football game, which we will not watch, but my sister and her boyfriend are coming over. Yeah. So if you're here in the background, Jalen Daniels, then that's the quarterback.

0:54 Oh, quarterback. Oh, this is football. I was like, basketball? A quarterback? Sports are not my forte. But lighthouses are. And I have a history movie today, which is more to say than the last episode. Totally did it. Hold on one second. I'm about to turn those buttons off forever. I'm going to make all the right ones the intro and all the left ones the outro. No? Bad, no. What's we got? What's the buoy? It is the annual reports from the Lighthouse Board. Oh. So we talk about these a lot, and a lot of the times they reference the 1852 one, which was the very first annual report from the Lighthouse Board.

1:39 So it started from the Treasury Department. Obviously, I need to be facing you directly for my voice to come through. You can move the microphone. No, because when I move it, everything changes. Yeah. Well, if we need a sponsor for microphones, headsets, audio equipment. Can you imagine if we just had like a little clip on one? Yeah. Are those okay, you think? They're okay. They're not as good. Because this is just, it's also just, yeah, our temporary setup. Anyway, annual reports were done from 1852 to 1935. So pretty significant portion of the lighthouse history here. The cover page of the very first one. Cool.

2:26 And a snip of like, I don't know, it was like 1910 or something. A snip from the middle just so you can see what it looks like. Group number three. But it started with the Treasury Department and from 1852 to 18... 76, so a little over 20 years, the Secretary of the Treasury's annual finance report included a section on lighthouses. So the annual report was not its own thing. It was included in the Treasury's finance report. It just had its own little chapter. Because there's so much money being spent on lighthouses. Yeah.

3:06 They're like, this is a big one. The first report, so the one that they published in 1852, had... all the laws and official instructions for lighthouse keepers and workers so big one that yeah this thing was huge it had all of the instructions for like what keepers would do i mean just everything and it also had all of the laws for the lighthouse board and so like all basically everything so that one was kind of the original um I don't want to make a bad analogy. It was the original written longest list of information for the United States Lighthouse. Yeah. Establishment at the time? Board, I think, started. And it was published with the treasurer's annual documents. Yes. And so this one is really lengthy. When I looked at the other years, they're about 100 pages.

4:02 And this first report was 850 pages. So it was like extremely long and it had like questions that inspectors should ask when looking at lighthouses. So it had stuff for every position to do with lighthouses and summaries of all the existing lighthouses. So all the ones they had in 1852, they wrote like a page on each one of how it was built and like all kinds of stuff like that. Relevant letters that were sent back and forth. like a compilation of everything Lighthouse related that they had so far. The board just like put it in that document because it was going to be published. Right. Here we are a couple years later still referencing it. It's there forever.

4:49 I would kill for a physical copy of that first 1852 one. A physical copy? Like a printed modern copy? Yeah, like a printed modern copy. Not like the original. That, the original I would never touch. I think that's, it wouldn't be any fun. I don't think you'd have to kill for it. I think you could probably find it and buy it. I tried. Print it. No? No. It's, I could print it off of Google if I wanted to sacrifice, you know, 400 something pages front and back. Vince is enjoying his coffee. It's the first time having, what did you say? First time having a normal coffee in a long time. Yeah, just black. Well, it's not black, but. it was black and then we added drip coffee in a long time usually i have espresso drinks yeah look out for me over here bocat is now on the table everything is chaos don't worry he's moving on welcome to the show welcome to the show that's how we live so each report so they did this every year and each report was a detailed summary from the chairman of the board of improvements being made and new lighthouses being built so the chairman of the lighthouse board would write these reports based on what he received from like superintendents and stuff.

5:59 Okay. So the board's reports included the annual reports of the superintendents of each lighthouse district, which usually contained an overview of like the conditions of all the lighthouses in each district improvements they needed and any new lighthouses that had been formed in that year. And then the district also included, um, any supplies they needed. and that included light vessels, buoys, oil lamps. So, like, anytime a lighthouse needed anything at any new point, it was included in the annual report. Well, don't you think there was some reconciliation between, you know, the keepers and the assistant keepers would write these requests, like, we need new oil house, we need, you know, an upgraded lens, the locals are telling us this, the shipmen are telling us this, and then you get... to the regional director the regional manager what's the superintendent yeah thank you and then whatever makes it into the annual report is like oh yeah we made it our request was heard yeah i actually think oh where did i see this not everything like you're saying not everything made it into the annual report it was like the ones that they wanted like to push forward to get money for were the ones that were reported so they cut out a lot of extra if somebody requested to a new oil house or whatever but they didn't think it would get approved then they wouldn't post it in the annual

7:29 report that's crazy so you can imagine that probably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way be like what we didn't make it into the report like no that's a shame Occasionally, the reports included drawings of lighthouses or light ships, and the 1876 report included maps of each district with the location of every single lighthouse of the time. Oh, that's cool. 1876. I don't know why that one specifically. I think there was one other year that they also did that, but it was later on, which probably got even crazier. Think about early 1900s, how many lighthouses there were. Crazy. Yeah. I'd like to see some of those maps. Yeah. I'd look into it. You can find scans of most of the annual reports on like Google and there's some other website. I can't remember what it's called. I think I linked the 1852 one in our notes. They're probably on the USLHS website.

8:27 Yeah. Yeah, I did. So if you want to see the big one, it's down there. 1877 through 1903, the treasury published a separate report, which had much of the same details as before. And so that is when we started having our own annual reports that were separated from the finance department. 1877. Yeah. Okay. Cool. What kind of pictures I have here? Okay. I have more screenshots. These are like, the other ones were scans and these are like photos or like, you know exact scans yeah very the organization of the lighthouse service so this one just shows like the the district the inspector for the district the superintendent and the chief clerk so like you can see in this year specifically the names of the people who worked there which i think was interesting because when we mention a superintendent or an inspector or whatever it's like in passing like we never give any screen time to the people who Well, there's so many. Yeah, exactly. And I'm sure it changed every year. So it's interesting to see the list of the real people, the people behind.

9:37 It is. And anytime you have an organization, I don't think these are volunteers necessarily, but where people volunteer themselves for a position or elect to take a position of service, where it's probably a lot of work. Yes. Can you imagine going to all of the lighthouses? in a year and doing an inspection and then having to do it all over again just reading the requests from all the lighthouses in a year because they're going to appeal year over year as we've learned for these needs that they have and then you have to determine based on well they've appealed 18 times now uh this year maybe we do have the money for this yeah maybe i will put this in the annual report and even then the annual report is just a bid to congress to give people money so it's like you have to decide what's going to get a chance to go in front of Congress and not like pick the ones that actually will get money. So shut down the government. Yeah. And another screenshot I have up here shows the efficiency pendants that were given out. I can't remember what year this was. I feel like it was later, like 1910s sometime. Okay. But we, Oh, 19, 1913. Woo. Data located. Uh, they, have the efficiency pendants on here and i remember when we covered uniforms housekeeper uniforms and i mentioned that you could get an efficiency pendant and only like i think very few i mean well here let's look

11:08 right here there's one per district would get an efficiency pendant and so it was like a really cool thing to have so anyway i just thought it was cool that they had the efficiency pendants listed out in this thing too. So there's basically everything you can think of. Lighthouse related shows up in the annual reports, which is really cool and makes sense. The efficiency, where else would you see? Like if you got an efficiency, you know, I think we need to bring back some of that. I think our government needs some efficiency pendants to be hung out and it can only be one per year. Please help them. Well, like I remember I went to, uh, I've never been. Military whatsoever. But I went to a basketball camp once at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, which is a military academy. They graduate as officers, but they study engineering and technology and aerospace. It's a really difficult college to be selected for. And then you go into a minimum of like four years of service after you graduate.

12:08 So everyone there is a student. They're called cadets. And they came through our rooms with the white glove inspection. So while we were staying there as just regular middle and high school basketball players, they would inspect our rooms. And they were pretty easy on us. But the point was that when they are cadets, they have these white glove inspections from the upperclassmen and from the staff. And it's like if there's any dust on any surface, you turn the whole room over, you clean the whole room. I heard the Navy SEALs do a similar process, probably the whole Navy, probably all of the military has these standards for cleanliness and orderly of like their own space. And I think that probably plays into how they behave. Interesting. I don't know.

12:55 So the point is to go back to an efficiency award for lighthouse keeping. It's so interesting to me because it was housed as a military, as a government institution. Some of those same aspects are showing up here where it's like, it actually is important that you keep things orderly. Your own house, maybe not so much, but like you're in charge of this structure and keeping it clean is like one of the biggest parts of being a lighthouse keeper. Painting and cleaning and moving and fixing. And the lens, no soot. And this was during a time when everything was flame. So you just had ash on it. Like you had to be really vigilant. Crazy. Good for them. I know. 1904, the Department of Commerce and Labor took over the reports before the Lighthouse Board was ended in 1910. And after this, it was called the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Lighthouses to the Secretary of Commerce. So they changed the name. So if you look up the Annual Reports of the Lighthouse Board, it ends in 1910. But there are still annual reports until 1935. And it's because it technically...

14:05 is no longer for the lighthouse board so it changed names if you look it up by title so they reframed it to go to commerce which kind of does make sense but especially later on yeah so we saw a lot less detail in these reports they kind of cut out all the extras stuff basically just did appropriations for improvements and any changes they made so it would say this lighthouse confirmed got five thousand dollars for congress for bubble law so yeah cut out off cut off a lot of the fat that's too bad we probably lost a lot of documentation because of that process i know i'm sure it was still made but not reported in the same way so yeah i think so too so that was until 1935 and that was the end of annual reports so um i guess because all the lighthouses ended up under the coast guard in 1939 they probably have their own system for what they did and we talked about like light lists and things so i don't know not sure what exactly happened after that if it was a structured change to something similar or if it's they just lost the whole annual report and started doing separate stuff and to be clear that the coast guard took over all of the honestly commonwealth but all the government owned lighthouses all the Not private aids for navigation. Yeah, and private I don't think was very common anyway. But like an official aid

15:37 of navigation. Yeah. Something funded by the government. All the ATONs. Yes. What was aid to navigation? ATON. And some of, yes, ATON. Aid to navigation? Yeah, A2N, ATON. Oh. Well. So many lighthouses that were not included. The records, you can clearly see a difference when we look at the history of any lighthouse, of what you can find. And one of the great reasons that we like to do United States lighthouses, because we're here, but also because they have records like these. Really great documentation. Really good. And then private aids are harder to find any information. And then foreign, not to the United States. That's really difficult.

16:25 Now we're stretching. But one of my upcoming lighthouses is going to be outside of the U .S. And I'm pretty excited about it. We had a friend go there and send us a picture. So that's all I'm going to say. I have some sources also. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I bet mine are better. We'll see. Okay, moving on to our lighthouse. And I want to apologize because this is on Lake Michigan again. Hey. There's so many. So then if I'm like, oh, this one's cool, it just happens to be on Lake Michigan. More likely than not, it's either in Michigan or it's in Maine. There's a lot of lighthouses in Michigan. Anything else is like, oh, nice. So anyway, going back to Lake Michigan.

17:11 1852, and this is how I got our history buoy. The superintendent of lights on the Great Lakes recommended the construction of three new lighthouses, two on Lake Superior and one on Point Betsy. To mark the entrance of the Manitou Passage from the south. So I pulled up. Map. My map. And so you can see Point Betsy Lighthouse down here. That little outcropping into the lake is Point Betsy. I did a little zoom up over here so you can see that it's. I like that. It's beachy. Like large. I mean. Not compared to the outlet. There's a body of water on one side, a body of water on the other side. So it's like this little passageway. It's an isthmus. Yeah. And then where these two islands are, just north of the point, between that and the mainland is Manitou Passage.

18:04 Okay. So I think there was a lot of activity going through there. They wanted to mark it. Makes sense. Okay. So this lighthouse of our day is Point Betsy. Point Betsy. Okay. Am I thinking of another one we've covered that was another patty? Yeah, I keep almost saying it. Now I can't remember. Point. Oh, no. There was some. I was looking at the restaurants nearby. Yeah. But Point Betsy. Okay. Point Betsy. Yeah. 1853. Oh, and also I wanted to point out on this map that there is a golf course. Oh, boy. Where is this? Michigan, you said? It's right there. Yeah. Let's look at it for our honeymoon. Oh, excuse me.

18:50 No. Yes. Because I told Vince that maybe we should just for our honeymoon, just go ahead and go to Maine and just like look at all over Maine. And he said, no. So interesting that you would say that Michigan is a different story. Separate point. If you think that our honeymoon should be a golfing and lighthouse trip, go ahead and like this video. No, not golf. Thank you. Our honeymoon's not even going to be a lighthouse trip, so I don't even want to hear anything about golf. I'll golf with you once. A glimpse into our life. Last week at my bachelor party, it was fantastic. We took a trip to Colorado. We played two excellent golf courses, had a great time. Bear Dance, the golf club at Bear Dance, and Fossil Trace near Golden. It was expensive.

19:38 It was really fun, though. And on our two lighthouse trips so far, The first to North Carolina to the Outer Banks. I got to play at Nags Head Golf Links. Lost nine balls and nine holes. It was awesome. It was very challenging. We were not ready. And then Cape Cod. Got to play Highland Links. The oldest links course in the United States. Has a lighthouse on it. So you were just wanting to keep that tradition going. Yeah, I'll golf with you once. Just putting it out there. Yeah, if we're going to stick to tradition. I golf once, and that's it. So you've got to choose wisely. She's a chipper and putter. I'm a chipper and putter, and I've resigned to that fact that I'll never play a full game of golf. It's just going to be, like, occasionally, it's really the middle part I skip. You just need lessons.

20:30 I've tried that already. No, you need lessons. I need more lessons? Yes. Lessons and practice. I got worse with the lessons, so. I can't imagine. All the golfers listening know that you just need new golf clubs. No. That solves all the problems. Incorrect. And moving on. Thank you for pointing out the golf course. You're welcome. Near Point Betsy. Bonita. I think that's what I keep almost saying. Bonita. Out in San Francisco. Your lighthouse that you covered. Good episode. Okay, 1853, Congress appropriated $5 ,000. And while a contract was awarded the year after that, the lighthouse wasn't completed until 1858. And this was because the construction company that bid the cheapest for this lighthouse was selected.

21:20 Also was given the responsibility of building North Point, Grand River, La Pointe, Rock Harbor, Portage River, Grand Island, Point Iroquois. Eagle River, Round Island, and Menasha all around the same time. They were booked. They were booked solid. They had done a bulk offering. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what happened there. I'm sure they just were like, just send the low bid to everything. No, I mean, if you can offer as a package, you can say, well, we can do it for less if you give us so much because they're a smaller percentage. Like wholesale. Yeah, like wholesale of building of lighthouses. This is a Costco lighthouse. So that's kind of why it took an extra four years to build this lighthouse.

22:08 And also, naturally, because of the area, a lot of the lighthouses were in remote places. Like this one, at the time, was just in the middle of absolutely nowhere. So that meant a long lead time on construction of our lighthouses. 1850s? Yeah. 1858 she was completed. Point Betsy was a circular 37 -foot yellow brick tower connected by a strange passageway. I mean, it's... Let's see. Oh, there's a photo. It's almost two stories. The passageway is almost two stories tall. So we got... Let's take a moment because this photo is really cool. First off... Wait. The passageway connects to a two -story dwelling. That was the last of my bullet points. Oh, sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. Well, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, no. All right. We have an image of black and white image of Point Betsy Light, Frankfurt, Michigan. So this is. Yes. So that's written by hand, which I always love. I do, too. And because of the contrast, it's written in what looks like pine trees. Yeah. To the left of the lighthouse footprint. So cool. Three gentlemen, it appears, standing in front. Kind of a barn shaped. housing unit it is and you'll see it later they they really enunciate the barnness later it almost looks like the lighthouse is a silo oh that's cool next to the barn structure you're right it's like a barn with a silo connected

23:39 someone's gonna be offended by that they're gonna be like no no that's not it it's not it you're missing the point it's nice okay accept it but the it looks nice the connecting enclosure is definitely on the second floor Yes. And then there's an opening down below. Yeah, like a door you can walk in straight into the passageway instead of going through the house. This house isn't still there, is it? Because that would be a great Zillow find. Have this lighthouse built into your house. It's so integral that it's... I feel like, yes. I feel like it's still there. Well, you said light yellow also? Yeah. Interesting. Very cool. The picture that I've pulled up, I believe it's been painted, but I'm not 100 % sure. It looks like plain white to me because you don't see any brick. I'm pretty sure I saw a picture of it with obvious brick, but I don't know. I don't have it. Well, in this photo, and like we say a lot of times, beautiful construction. They did a great job. Really good job. Aesthetically. For the low bid, yeah. For the low bid. They did some aesthetic. when normally the low bid does not. Yeah, low bid was better back then. Yeah. So they have five rows of brick directly underneath the decagonal, which we've talked about before, remember? Ten sides. We've learned exactly ten sides. Decagonal lantern room, which these rows of brick gradually increase in diameter to support the gallery. So you can

25:11 just see it's like... You know, we talked recently about, I can't remember which one, the lighthouse that tapers out like quickly. But this one is like a stepped taper. Yeah. Cool. It is nice. Wow. You're gesturing so much with my hands, I keep touching my microphone. Boom, boom, boom. They got a fourth order Fresnel lens that produced a fixed white light 53 feet above the lake. So it's like on sand dunes, which we will find is problematic as per usual. I wonder when they... We're like, okay, we can't build on sand dunes anymore. Or we need to put down some serious foundational support if we're going to do that. I don't know. Because only a year into its service, the lake began to encroach on the light due to it being a beachy area. And we'll see lots of attempts in its history to stop the erosion throughout its lifetime. It comes up every once in a while.

26:07 Too bad. We know that if we ever bought or built a beach house, it would be like the Bonser Beach House, which is one street removed from the front. Did you notice that? No. They describe it in their offering as like a semi -beach house or semi -ocean front. Oh, because you have to walk through. Yeah. But if you look at, and they have, of course, drone views and everything. Across the street is the beach. Yeah. So as we learned, this is at the Outer Banks. Yeah. You know, the erosion is going to keep moving things. And so. They're in a good spot. We saw some houses on stilts that were like in the water. Yeah. And those are gone now. Oh. Yeah. I follow Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Damn. And they often, often are posting like, don't use the beach today.

26:55 There's wood everywhere. Another house went down. Like it's. Remember that middle area? Yeah. I can't remember what it was called, but almost all of those that we saw are gone. It was near where we stopped for burgers on the way down there. Yeah. Anyways, the point is, if you buy a beach house, according to us here in Kansas, you should build it not so close to the sand. Yeah, just letting you know. So keep that in mind, building your beach houses. You tell your construction crew that they can't build too close. I wonder what proportion. It's probably not an insignificant proportion of our listeners are beach house people. Yeah, or beach people. Or people that will be beach house people. Actually, you can see that on our website. Not our listeners, but you and I can see on our. Oh, where they're from. Where the people are listening from. And there's a high concentration around like the northeast. Let's go. And on the Great Lakes.

27:51 Nice. Hell yeah. That's great. Thanks, y 'all. Also. Australia has a strangely high number of listeners, which I don't think we've covered in an Australian lighthouse. Not in my memory. Not yet. Not yet. We haven't. Gold Coast. I bet you there's some lighthouses. Gold Coast? I think that's what it's called. I don't know anything. Yeah. I'm going to not look it up and just go with it. Pretty sure there's a Gold Coast. You tentatively reach for your phone like, I can answer this. I'm going to take a gamble. Gold Coast is where a lot of the establishments are in Australia. Oh, now he's looking. Like a lot of the larger structures. So you're just making a statement and then fact checking. Yes. Okay. Gold Coast. Let's see what the internet says.

28:34 Okay. Gold Coast is a city in Australia. I'm an idiot. Okay. It's a major coastal city, a tourist destination in Queensland, Australia. Located south of Brisbane. Known for its beaches, theme parks, surfing spots, and lush hinterland. Which is a fun word. But I bet you there's lighthouses there because there's a beach there. There's got to be. Anyways. Where there's a beach, there's a lighthouse. Australians, we hear you. Yes, thank you for listening. And eventually we'll get around to your country. But it's hard. U .S. focused. Moving on. First, three keepers stayed less than a year. It was pretty secluded, so I understand why this happened. A lot of lighthouses.

29:16 But the fourth keeper, Alonzo Slyfield, served here for over 20 years. So he stuck around for a long time. Cool. He was also a doctor and a coroner as well as a lighthouse keeper. Which meant that he was often called away from the lighthouse for other duties, which I have never heard of, that you can have more than one job along with your lighthouse keeping duties. But remember, doctors back in the day were like... Few and far in between. Well, but yeah. Or not practiced. And so powerful. And so rare. Trying to figure out what you were going to say. No, they're like, you know, they had a little leather bag. Yeah, yeah. Doctors were super well thought of. And very mobile. It wasn't like, I mean.

29:59 They weren't hospitals in the same way. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And, you know, if he's the coroner too, you think like, you know, his patient dies, he just turns around, puts on a different hat. Switches briefcases. I know what happened here. In 1876, a life -saving station was built just south of the lighthouse. And Slyfield felt that it was easier for him to leave the lighthouse because of this, because he was no longer having to be the only person who would save people in shipwrecks or people in boats and stuff. So he often left the lighthouse in his son's hands. And Thomas Matthews, who was keeper of the life -saving station that was built, wrote in his log in 1880, quote, duty compels me to note on this journal this very bad way Point Betsy light has been kept this spring. I do not wish to do A .J. Slyfield any injury, but the light has been neglected so much and my crew so often passing remarks upon the light that I am obliged to make note of it. Oh, my gosh. Oh, boy. This morning, the patrol see that the light did not revolve and was burning very dim. Time, 3 .30 a .m. Watched it until near 5 o 'clock and the weather being hazy and many vessels and steamers passing. Surfman went to the lighthouse, woke up some boys who were sleeping there who got up and fixed and put the light in running order. The keeper is in the habit of leaving boys at the light in charge.

31:31 End quote. So he just blasted this guy. And shortly following this, like... A few months. Edwin Fitzgerald. Huh? What? Alonzo wrote a letter to the board to retire and requested his son, Edwin, replace him, which was like, at this time, it was very unorthodox to be like, hey, I'm retiring, and also here's who I want to be the next keeper. It's like, you're not in a position to suggest who's going to be the next keeper. It's usually, obviously, there's a selection process that goes on, but they accepted it. even though this was one of the boys that allegedly was neglecting the light. Boys to men. Yeah, and I didn't see any reports about Edwin being a bad lighthouse keeper. So, I mean, it's not the kid's fault.

32:17 I thought his name was Alonzo. Alonzo was the dad who retired. Yeah, Edwin was the next guy. Cool. Good names. Oh, I forgot to look this up. 1873, a concrete apron was poured around the lighthouse to protect it. As a construction guy, do you know what an apron is? Well. I mean, I know what I can assume what an apron. I mean, either like I want to use the word skirting because that's similar to apron, but either like a small pad that's adjacent to the actual base of the tower. That's what I would guess. Or it could be a small retaining wall, you know, a vertical concrete. I'm seeing that it's basically just a short concrete pad around a structure. So like.

33:03 Just a couple of feet at most. Kind of add to the footings. Yeah, just extend it out a little bit, probably. I wonder, I don't know, this is maybe dumb to say, but I don't know the history of when rebar was introduced. Because rebar between existing and new concrete, you can help to transfer some of the load, but you have to drill into the existing concrete and insert that rebar. Where do we see that? I feel like we talked about that a long time ago. Rebar? About like drilling into the existing. Oh, you know what it was? It was the one that kept having a bunch of additions. It was our house rental, Jarbo. That's what I was thinking of. For the, yeah, we had a set of stairs. We had this sheisty little house.

33:51 And anyways. It wasn't so bad now in hindsight, but the stairs began to sink into the earth and they were separate. Pulled away from the house and everything. And at the time it was, we had the ice storm of the decade and Emily was on her little scooter and it was the only, only real entrance and exit to the house. Yeah. So I was fighting our, fighting. Landlord. I was writing letters. To the landlord asking for them to address this. This is very serious. It took a long time. I mean, it was very expensive. Yes, and we talked about rebar and concrete. That's what I was thinking of. I was like, what lighthouse should we talk about? Well, it was just a house, not a lighthouse. That's so funny. Anyway, 1880, the annual report of the Lighthouse Board wrote, quote, this is one of the most important lights on Lake Michigan, which they say about all of them, so I'm like. Relax. The present light has never given satisfaction. The tower was built by contract in 1858 and the work was miserably done. Lopid hits once again. Slaps. Dang, we're looking at it like, yeah, this looks good. Wait, I'm not finished yet. Oh, oh, oh. A new tower with sufficient height to put the focal plane 100 feet above the lake should be built and the fourth order lens should be replaced by a third order. An appropriation of $40 ,000 is recommended for this work. End quote. They're really sprucing it up. They're really wanting some sprucing.

35:22 That's a lot of ask. That's twice the focal plane it has right now. So, like, the lighthouse itself is 37 feet. And the focal plane, I think, was 54. So, like, you're more than doubling the height of the lighthouse and asking for a million -dollar Fresnel lens. From France. Right? They all came from France at the time, which is no small order, as they say. An order. It's a third order. That's actually a good one. No small order. Anyways, that's really interesting. Also, we kind of, at this time in history, don't they know that a higher focal plane is actually not the answer?

36:06 Well, it can not be the answer, but like. In this case, I think it probably would have been the answer. I guess it depends on weather, right? Because I think of Triangle Island most often because it was one of my early ones. 100 feet is not that high. We're talking yours was, what, 300 feet or something? Because it was an island, yeah. But what is the Cape Hatteras, for example? It's a tall one. 200? 217, I think. Somewhere around there. I was going to guess 220. 200, 220. Anyways, somewhere in there. So like, I don't know. So they proposed a 100 -foot focal plane, a third -order lens near the existing location? Like replacing this lighthouse, yeah.

36:51 So I don't know if they would have redone the lighthouse or demoed or put it in a new location. Personally, I would have gone with new location if erosion is causing a problem. But you don't want to change things too much for mariners, especially when it's marking. Like a well -used passageway. Yeah. But they actually repeated this request for nine years without being appropriated in anything. And so they decided what they really needed was a faster light flash and a fog signal. I'm like, if you tried to get a taller lighthouse before you put in a fog signal, put in a fog signal. That's interesting. Yeah. Also, like, let's just make it as true. Like that's going to make it safer out here. Yeah. But I think, so I don't know exactly. There's some confusion about what's happening here because like I said, it started with a solid white light, a fixed white light. Yes. And now it's saying they need a faster flash pattern. So it's saying. Any flash pattern would be faster. Yeah, right. It said they went from a 90 second gap between flashes.

38:00 and changed it to a 10 -second flash. So at some point, they changed it from fixed flashing, very, very slow flash. So I understand wanting to change that, but I don't think it would have taken me nine years to change my mind. Yeah, 90 seconds is like, eh, no one needs this. You're going to be passed by the time it flashes again. Well, and like... So to make this change, let's for those who may not know, they're going to change. I forget what it's called, but it's the component that's actually around the lens that's rotating. Probably sometimes it's like the panels that are either colored glass, clear glass or their blanks. Right. Where it's like a solid. Yeah. Or. The lens itself. That's right. The lens itself, those panels, or sometimes there's a blocking object that rotates depending on when and where.

38:48 Maybe it was never fixed, White. I don't know. The information is contradicting, and I've seen a picture of the lens, and it has bullseyes, so they wouldn't use bullseyes for a fixed lens. I think they can. I mean, they can, but if you're wanting them to see... a constant powerful light, you wouldn't be directing it into beams. You'd want it to be bright around. I mean, bullseyes are usually for a rotating lens that has a focused beam that passes like a flashing light. Yeah. I'm curious about that. Cause I would argue that it does make it brighter on certain lines. So I agree with you where it could be utilized to move, but also a bullseye does amplify the range of that light, even if it were to be fixed. So in some ways, even if it weren't a rotating light, you still may order bullseye lenses for each component of the lens or panels. But yeah, but if you were never... If you're never going to rotate. But if it was originally designed to not rotate, then I'm guessing they're going to add panels, not add a whole rotating component.

39:51 Because what it takes to rotate a fourth or third order lens, it's not a small mechanical component to add to a lighthouse that exists. I don't know. I'm on coffee, so my brain is like, what if we talked about everything? I'm not sure exactly what happened with the lens because looking at it now, it has bullseyes. It's a flashing lens, so I don't know if it was never fixed to begin with or if they just had a lens with bullseyes. I don't know. I also don't know. I have pictures of it later, so get excited. 1891 to 92, a steam fog signal was installed in a fog building 120 feet north of the lighthouse. And a new, oh, here we go. A new fourth order lens was added that reduced the flash from 90 seconds to 10 seconds. So it must have been fixed and something going on. And then they added the bullseye lens for no lens. I'm sure I'm missing a very important and relevant piece of information. But if I was in charge of changing this and it's going to be fourth order and fourth order, I would just install some blocking. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I wish I knew what it was called.

41:03 It's like a cylinder with sections. It's like there's metal sheets that cover the lens occasionally. And so then when it comes to a gap in this metal sheeting, it looks like a flash. Right. And the inside of the metal sheet is typically reflective. Yeah. So that it's... amplifies the light through anyways cool we'll leave them to their guess we'll never know i know new image so the picture i pulled up was an oil house and the fog signal building cute that they built so it's pretty cute and these are more current photos so obviously they've repainted and they're still standing today so and there's some snow never forget michigan is cold no i always forget about it until i'm looking at photos and half of them are just like icy snowy i'm like whoa forget that not a lot of lighthouses are tropical yeah that's a lot of them are very wintry especially in michigan these additions added an assistant keeper position to the lighthouse so the dwelling got an additional six rooms i was like wow i'm assuming they mean like One of the rooms is a kitchen. One is a living room. Yeah. You know. Not six bedrooms.

42:15 It's not like six bedrooms. But this allowed them to split the Keeper's dwelling into two apartments for the now two Keeper's families. Picture of that. And this is where I was saying that they start to lean a little heavy into the. The farm. Yes. They really enunciated. What is this? What is it called? Gamble roof? Gable. I think it's Gable. But yeah, it's the. Breaking peaks. Like three large peaks on the truss that make up the roof. A gable roof is a normal house roof. I'm going to find it. You got me. Barn type roof? I don't know. I know it starts with a G. Please. Gambril. What? G -A -M -B -R -E -L. Okay. Gambril. I didn't know that word. And now we do. So it's got, you know, very traditional American barn look to it. Yes, like that two different angles of rooftop. Pretty fun. Very deep roof. Lots of roof space. Well, yeah, and they're usually occupied. So whether it was a hay storage or in this case bedrooms and whatnot, you know, a lot of structures in America are built with roofs that are just like attics. So it's just for insulation. These are occupied.

43:36 This is random, but if I looked at this picture... What? If I looked at this picture and didn't know anything, I would say that it was AI. Because there's this one tiny building in the middle that has an exceptionally long doorway. I don't know what is happening here. And then there's a chimney that goes... Way too tall for the house it's attached to. It's like twice the height of the house it's attached to. Yeah, why would they do that? Do you think that's the steam? No, because the steam... Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah. It's like... Yeah, you're right. That little outhouse or whatever it is looks like it's inserted between the buildings. Yes. Like, what if we threw one more in the distance? Yeah, it's just fun. And then... It's like all the perception's off. Yeah, there's a man for scale on the right side, I think, near a doorway. And that chimney is absurdly tall. It's very tall.

44:34 I understand if it's like smoking, you want to like keep it away. You know, you don't want a high clearance above the living spaces, but yeah, I don't know. And maybe there's a stack effect. Like, you know, we design stacks these days. So you have to have a certain height for the air to pull and then it starts to pull a consistent flow. I don't know. Maybe they knew that back then. But yeah, it definitely looks like a botched AI photo. Moving on. 1890, the apron was broken out and a ring of concrete was inserted underneath the tower to stabilize it after a lot of beachy erosion. And a curved revetment was constructed at the water's edge to absorb the energy of the waves crashing against the beach. And this was built using leftover materials for repairs at Spectacle Reef Lighthouse. That's a cool name.

45:24 We haven't talked about Spectacle Reef. I think Spectacle Reef. Has a lot of the same aspects of standard rock. Like that same secludedness. We'll have to cover that one. That makes sense. I've heard about it a lot because it's tied into a bunch of other lighthouses. Our friend who studied civil engineering taught us about revetment stone. Oh, yeah. Riprap. That's right. Comes around. 1899, the dwelling and tower were painted white with red roofs as a better day mark for passing mariners during the day. In 1920, Keeper Danielson to the Bureau of Public Roads begged for some improvements to be made on the rough wagon path that ran between the lighthouse and the highway. So there was a highway. And then you had to exit onto basically like a dirt, rocky, you know, like beach path. And so he was like, please turn this into a paved road. Like we're dying out here. They were ignored for years.

46:29 So after a few years, the keepers and the life -saving station, the men who worked there, did it themselves with the help of the community, finishing a serviceable road in 1924. Wow. So they just took matters into their own hands. And it was like a lot. It was a long road. It wasn't just like a little thing. It was like miles. People don't do that anymore. No. No one would be like, well, I guess we'll just do it ourselves. Yeah. With the help of our local friends. Our local friends. It just feels like maybe things get taken care of a little easier, maybe, because there's so many people. Yeah, must have been a joint interest of the locals. I don't know. Pretty cool. The lighthouse was electrified in 1921, and in 1937, the life -saving station was decommissioned. And by this point, they had three keepers at the lighthouse, so two assistants and one principal. So the lighthouse service wanted to use... this life -saving station as additional housing for all the keepers who are now smashed into like the duplex which i don't think was like super uncomfortable but obviously they could always use more room they're all the time yeah but they just decided to improve the dwelling that already existed instead so the life -saving station was sold in 1945 and still stands today oh that's cool picture of that as well wow someone's private home it's so yeah it's private so i'm not A hundred percent. I'm not sure if you can go and actually look at it or if it's, maybe they'll give you a tour. I don't know. Super cool. You know, this reminds

48:00 me of another life -saving station. I think it was that we saw the Outer Banks. We went, it was kind of the furthest place we drove to kind of inland. We went over a huge bridge and then we went to a lighthouse. Is it Roanoke Marshes? Yeah. It was, yeah, kind of, it was for the. um the bay or whatever it's called the cove that's the ocean yeah but remember the building on the pier looked very similar yeah the central high tower uh we couldn't go inside i think it was closed when we were there yes it was closed like five minutes before we walked over i was like why is there nobody here it's because everybody was leaving But I wonder if that was a repeated design or if it's just by happenstance it looks so similar. I think the life -saving stations always looked very similar. We talked about that, our history buoy, a couple episodes ago. We talked about the structure that was built. And usually it had this center watch tower. And then the rest of it's... I don't know. That would make for a really cool... Reading space. Well, yeah, but I was thinking like a really cool studio build. Like the one that we had seen, I think it was used as a museum. So maybe it had been changed, but there was no internal walls. So the stair tower was in the middle of the room and then the entire room was open. That'd be really cool. That would be cool. Yeah, you could do a lot of stuff with these kind of houses,

49:30 but hopefully it's... You got to keep it original. Yeah. Shortly after this, the boathouse for the lighthouse collapsed from shifting sands. And in 1940, a protective wall was built using sheet pilings. Oh, yeah. Photo of that. Nice little, you can see some snow, some ice buildup. Dang, it's close to the water. I know. It's so close. You can just see it. I mean, all this is sand. So it's just, I mean, it is just a breadth away from. tipping over, or at least having some serious structural strain on the actual tower part of the lighthouse. But it's very pretty. This station is really nice looking. 1983, the Coast Guard automated Point Betsy and Sherwood Point Lighthouse, which were the last two manned lighthouses on the Great Lakes. Oh, cool. So the Coast Guard personnel continued to live at the station until the heating system gave out in the dwelling in 1996. So it's a long time of it just being housing for the Coast Guard. That's crazy. I was born in 95. I know it puts into perspective like the lifetime of a lighthouse is so long ago. Yeah.

50:44 I know it was the history of Bowie, not. directly related to the lighthouse but we're talking about the 1800s like 1805 i think yeah 1850 you know the date i saw and then now someone in the coast guard was living here past the time that i was born yeah it is crazy it's a long story but it would have been cool to be alive if you cared about lighthouses so many ifs you know but It would have been cool to be alive earlier than this. Oh, yeah. You could care about them. Traveling in history. Yeah. Have your hands in there. That's kind of fun. That's what's fun about traveling to lighthouses now, or that they would never make sense today. Yeah. No one would ever build a lighthouse today, practically. But there was a time when that was the practical pinnacle of technology. Yeah. And so that was what, obviously, that's what everyone did. So when we travel and we see these places, you can kind of step into them, climb the tower, be a part of it. When we talk about 1996, the closest thing I think of is the Lighthouse Act, which is early 2000s.

51:44 2000, exactly. 2000. So there was, in the 90s, some of the records we saw, I'm thinking of Absecon Lighthouse specifically. Lighthouses were really not in vogue. There wasn't as many restorations going on. Well, and people were like, oh, they're decrepit, let's tear it down. No, wait, there has to be a group that cares a lot about it. that forms and then takes over the lighthouse. Otherwise, they just fall down. So, I'm glad we have some great photos. Yeah. It's really nice. Agree. 2004, the title of the lighthouse was transferred to Benzie County, which I assume is the city that it's in. Probably. Or, you know, the county. We immediately leased it to the friends of Point Betsy Lighthouse, which was formed in 2002. They renovated the outside of the lighthouse for $1 million in 2006. That's crazy. Like we just talked about. That's like $12 million today.

52:35 We just talked about, what's the lighthouse we just did? Which one? Not Chris Point. Bonita? No, the one that we just. My brain is not working today. Avery Point. Yeah. Good Lord. We just recorded this four days ago. Well, it's been a long four days. Planning a wedding. So we were just talking about how that one that they renovated it for $500 ,000. Yeah. Modern day. And we were like, oh, that seems like a lot, but also not a lot at all. Well, one million dollars for doing the outside of the lighthouse in 2006. But they reverted the colors back to its original black lantern room, green trim and doors and bright red cedar shingled roof. That's cool. So they went back to our natural beginning colors. I mean, after the yellow brick section. In 2008, the Fog Signal building was restored, followed by the interior of the lighthouse. So went back and did a double whammy. And the group was awarded the Governor's Award for Historic Preservation for all of the work they did. No kidding. It was done so well and so historically accurate that they got an award for it. That's awesome.

53:48 On top of all of that, they also located the original Fourth Order lens, which was at the Sleeping Bear Point Coast Guard Station slash Maritime Museum. and return it to the lighthouse to display, which you can go see today. Inside? Yeah. Cool. So this is where I was like, it definitely has bullseyes and they're all touching. It's so cute. Yeah. Like little cells separating. I wonder what the cost of that would be. To buy it now? Gosh, I don't even know. Because that's pretty dope. So particular and also very like specified, you know, like who's making Fresnel lenses. Well, they've always been high -precision glass. Yeah. Very expensive. Very specific uses.

54:34 And now that they're not made, really, because they're not needed. Pretty cool. Very beautiful picture. 2022, so very recently. The Coast Guard installed an LED beacon into the lantern room, so it's officially lit once again. Nice. I have a current picture here of what it looks like. And you can see that they've done some more concrete work on the front. So they've completely removed the chance for the sand to be displaced in front of the lighthouse because they covered it all with concrete. I wonder what those stones are for. Maybe breaking up waves before they reach the lighthouse. Could be. Because it's right, I mean, the water's right there. It is pretty crazy. Interesting. I have another one that shows further out. We still have that sheet. The sheet pilings. Yes. And some groins to break up the water that comes in. So they're doing a lot of different methods for stopping ocean power reaching the lighthouse. Well, and what an investment it is, too. Not only the modern money, but the history that's there. You really got to try to protect it. Yeah, you might as well do everything to try and give it a chance. Man, it looks gorgeous.

55:46 It is beautiful. I really love this. This must be summertime. Yeah. The water's blue. Grass and trees are green. Yeah. Nowadays, you can actually visit the lighthouse 10 to 5, except Tuesdays and most Sundays. So specific. Oh, that's so nice. Specific days. Tours are $5, and they have, looking at pictures online, they have an excellent gift shop. Lots of merch options. Looks high quality. And you can spend a night in the lighthouse for $595 for six guests, two night minimum. It's a deal. And if you look at their website, the inside is adorable. Like the way it's decorated is the way I want my house to be decorated. You're telling me we could do like a golf trip there. Yes. Two nights. Two nights, stay in the lighthouse, play golf. Sold. And then we fly overseas. Kind of awesome. So they also keep track of live visitor counts on their website. So I'm not sure if when you walk in, you have to like press a button or something, or if somebody's actually keeping tally, but it's like their website. It's like, how many visitors have we had today? And it's like 27.

56:55 Interesting. Well, I wonder if it's like, you know, when they collect payment, it's accounted for. Oh yeah, probably. Probably automated. But it's like a tour is $5, but you can go in regardless. You can just go into the shop. Yeah. Yeah. Or like visitors on the grounds or whatever. That's cool. But I love it. I've never seen a live visitor account kept on a lighthouse website. Even Google is really interesting because it tracks people's location. Oh, yeah. So you can look at like, if I'm going to look at a bar or restaurant, it'll be like, oh, it's busy right now. Yes. It's busier than usual. Busier than usual, yeah. What? And I'm like, oh, no. How do they know where we all are? Well. They've known for a long time. Yeah. Easy answer. So. They're also doing haunted lighthouse tours in October 17 through 18. So when this posts, it's going to be this coming weekend. Oh, yeah. Go out there. Yeah.

57:44 Friday, Saturday and the October 24 and 25. And they're $15 for a tour. So that's cheap. Go and check it out. Is there any haunted history here? Not that I know of. Just like, wouldn't it be spooky if? I'm sure. I mean, there's got to be something. going on i'm sure there's some history we maybe there's a lot of lighthouses that don't project their yeah they don't want to like and people died here yeah it's like we don't need to people people have died at most lighthouses yeah which is even interesting you know from painting the lighthouse i mean it'll just be stuff like that or it's nothing nefarious but there's a lot of a lot of people drowning right outside that's not all successful um rescues and stuff so yeah if you're interested in that we have several episodes we've covered haunted histories yeah of lighthouses and and that's what yours is there's been murder there's been ghosts there's been accidental deaths drowning lots of spooky episodes we've covered urns urns that's not one we've covered can you believe that we covered a lighthouse yeah and then got rid of it and now it's something we really should cover terrible tilly Terrible Tillamook Lighthouse.

59:01 That's what you should cover for the next episode. You know the history. No, I don't remember. That was years ago. That was three years ago. All right. Maybe I'll cover Terrible Tillamook. Vince is going to do something spooky for Halloween, which his episode will be posted, I think, a week before Halloween or something. Perfect. Maybe even less. 27th? I can't remember. Somewhere in there. Whatever Monday is before Halloween. Lots of good options. But that's all I have. Point Betsy Lighthouse. A good full -length episode for you guys, plus a full -length buoy. I basically just absolutely destroyed it today. You did. You crushed it. Like waves on the beach. Crushed it. Also, what was the county's name one more time? Is it in your notes? Because how did Point Betsy get its name? We never talked about that.

59:47 It's Benzie County, but Point Betsy, it was the... There's a long Native American history of how the point got... betsy it was like derived from their original name which was like sawfish it was how they saw fish so i don't know i just wonder if like benzy was it benzy yeah benzy county yeah betsy i don't know i think the county came after the name of the point so could have been a shared derivation yeah sure or not if you know you never know let us know yeah anything else you'd like to add No. Talk about how great I am. You did really great today. We're over an hour of current time. I think it'll be about an hour after editing. Yeah, probably. Because we were interrupted for a football game at one point, which is great. That's so good. What else?

1:00:39 I think, honestly, we'll look at, I've been talking about merch a lot lately. I think we'll be looking in the new year for merch. Yeah, we're doing wedding stuff. We made promises we can't keep. And honestly, seasonally, it'd be more fun to have spring and summer where people are thinking about lighthouses more often. I do want a sweatshirt, though. I think what we'll do is I'll try to have it prepared around New Year's, and then hopefully we'll be able to keep some stock going for you folks who are interested in a couple of various items. And those are something you can buy on our website. We'll start a tab, a page of our website that's for merch, so you can buy it directly from there through probably a Shopify link. I don't know. Length. I'm starting to lose enunciate. That's all I had to say. And thank you for today's episode. It was really fun. Yeah, you're welcome. And you can check out the rest of our episodes available on thelighthouseflowdown .com. Check out our episode map. And you can check out our videos, too, in the same place.

1:01:42 And leave us a review. We've gotten a couple more reviews, and we love to read them. And we hope you catch us next time on... The lighthouse? Yeah. Good job.