Toledo Harbor Light

About this property

The Toledo Harbor Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, in the United States. The light replaced the 1837 lighthouse on Turtle Island at the mouth of the Maumee River. It is an active aid to navigation. The lighthouse is built on a 20-foot-deep (6 m) stone crib, 8.4 miles (13.5 km) from the mouth of the Maumee River, marking the entrance to the Toledo harbor. It sits about 7 miles (11 km) north of Maumee Bay State Park. The need for a lighthouse became apparent after the shipping channel was widened and deepened in 1897 and shipping traffic increased. Construction began in 1901 when the United States Army Corps of Engineers sunk a large crib, filled it with stone, and then topped the portion above water with a concrete base to create an artificial island. Crib construction had been perfected on the Great Lakes on such earlier lights as White Shoal Light, Stannard Rock Light, and Rock of Ages Light, which was developed by Engineer Col. Orlando M. Poe. The tip of the lantern vent is 85 feet (26 m) high above the lake. It has a three-story dwelling and is brick with a steel frame. Its Romanesque style is unique among Great Lakes lighthouses. Built for $152,000, almost as much as Spectacle Reef Light, the most expensive lighthouse on the Great Lakes. The Toledo light was first illuminated on May 23, 1904, by a 3½-order Fresnel lens that featured a 180-degree bull's-eye, two smaller 60-degree bull's-eyes and a ruby-red half cylinder glass made in Paris by Barbier and Bernard. The engineers next put steel frames in place, providing stability for a three-story brick lighthouse and an attached one-story fog signal building. The dwelling was signed to accommodate one lighthouse keeper and two assistants. It rises 69 feet (21 m). A cylindrical tower has a diameter of 13 feet, upward from the center of the dwelling roof. The lantern room measures 8.5 feet (2.6 m) in diameter. Helical bars support the glass panes in the onion-domed topped lantern room. The lantern room originally housed an unusual 3 ½-order Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier & Benard of Paris. The lens featured a 180-degree bull's-eye, two smaller 60-degree bull's-eyes, and a ruby-red half cylinder of glass, and when revolved produced two white flashes followed by a single red flash. A suspended weight was used to rotate the lens, which first sent forth its penetrating beams of light on the night of May 23, 1904. By 1966, human keepers were replaced by an electric motors to rotate the lens. The lighthouse was fortified to protect it from vandalism in the absence of lighthouse keepers. One part of the security system was fully uniformed mannequin placed in an upper window. His manner or dress, facial hair and wigs was varied. This gave rise to an urban legend that the facility was haunted and the figure beckoning. It has been reported that the mannequin became "part of the Coast Guard's tradition" so new Toledo-stationed officers stationed sign its shirt as an initiation ritual.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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