A shining light

By Alex Lehto-Clark

For over a century, the Marquette lighthouse has stood through gales and blizzards and every weird weather pattern Lake Superior throws its way. It’s a mild day at the end of April, just a few hours before a spring snowstorm, and the fog gives the lighthouse an illusion of floating–an island in the sky, the sky blending with the crispness of Lake Superior.

“It’s painted in a color called heartthrob red,” said Marquette Maritime museum director Hillary Billman.

The Maritime Museum is just a quick walk away from the light- house, and both are overseen by Billman, with help from a small summer staff and a group of dedicated board members. She took the position in 2016, and since then, has had her hands on various projects in the museum and with “lighthouse park.” On this day, just a few weeks before the summer season starts, she’s busy putting together exhibits, sitting at a table that has decades of maritime history sprawled across it. A drill here, a level there, various tools strewn throughout the museum.

“It’s a Sunday and I’m working, so you can tell it’s crunch time,” she said.

Billman said the Maritime Museum partners with the City of Marquette, the owner of the lighthouse property, to renovate and maintain this “historical park”.

According to Assistant City Manager Sean Hobbins, it’s been a fruitful and mutually beneficial partnership.

“I think we have a unique city asset here,” Hobbins said. “We maintain all these properties but we do not have the capacity to run tours.”

Billman, wearing all of her hats, has that capacity and skill set. In fact, she has the lighthouse history details committed to memory. The structure that stands there today is actually the second lighthouse. The first one was built in 1853.

“It wasn’t built very well, so it began to deteriorate very rapidly,” Billman said.

The lighthouse that stands there today was finished in 1866, just one year after the Civil War ended, only a decade after Michigan became a part of the United States, and only a few years after Marquette was incorporated into a city. It’s one of the oldest structures in Marquette, according to Billman.

The original lighthouse was a story-and-a-half “schoolhouse” design, but Billman said the US Lighthouse Service quickly realized they needed more space. While the Life Saving Service, which would become the US Coast Guard in 1915, was an essential part of the operations in Marquette, Billman stressed that the US Lighthouse Service was a separate entity all the way up until 1939–when it merged with the Coast Guard. This distinction is significant, she said, because the area’s earliest lighthouse keepers were dedicated civilians, not members of the military.

And Marquette needed more than one keeper to keep the candle burning, per se.

“They added a second story in around 1910 to have places for more keepers to live,” Billman said. “There was an apartment on each floor. Originally, the main floor had a kitchen and living room. When they added the second story, they could house two keepers. And there was a barn house that was right outside at the bottom of the lighthouse steps that housed a third keeper.”

Three keepers, Billman pointed out, for the area’s many maritime safety tasks.

“The upper harbor, the lower harbor, the Marquette lighthouse, and a two whistle emergency system, which was out on the end of the point,” Bill- man explained.

These additions make the Marquette lighthouse unique. Lighthouses were generally designed from a small selection of architectural plans. The Marquette lighthouse is the only one of its kind on the Great Lakes. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Just as the neighboring cities of Negaunee and Ishpeming are distinct- ly shaped by their mining history and their location on the iron-ore range, Marquette is equally defined by its location on Lake Superior. Not many cities get a chance to own a lighthouse, but it’s an opportunity that the City of Marquette jumped on.

The U.S. Coast Guard leased the property, which included the lighthouse, a few other historic buildings, and 2.5 acres of Lighthouse Point, to the museum in 2002.

In 2016, the property was transferred to the City of Marquette as part of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. This transfer ensured that the property would stay in public hands, as selling the property for development is not allowed. Then, the work to restore the property began.

“Then, we had to get a SHPO (State Historic Preservation Office) contractor to give us a status on the building and what needed to be done,” Hobbins explained.

It was a long list, a list that the city and the Maritime Museum continue to tackle.

It wasn’t ever an easy place to live or to take care of. Billman said the building itself is unheated, and the snow and ice in the winter made it difficult for lightkeeper families to do basic tasks like get groceries inside. Dozens of steep steps lead up to the living space, and even on an eerie spring day, it’s easy to see why it might be difficult to make that trek back and forth multiple times a day. Walking through the lighthouse today, it’s also difficult to imagine the lighthouse proper as a living space, but it was not so long ago that families called it home. Lighthouse keepers continued to reside in the living quarters all the way into the late 20th century. The final family moved out in 1998.

“By that point, the light was automated anyway,” Billman said. “We’ll get families that come through the lighthouse and say “I lived there in the 1960s or the 1970s and I love talking to them. I love the research–the kind of people that lived in those places–those lighthouse keepers’ stories always fascinate me.”

Like the story two twins who grew up in the lighthouse shared with Billman on one of their visits.

“There was a stable down at the end of the steps,” Billman said. “And supposedly the first lighthouse keeper’s horse died in the stable. And those boys swear that they heard that horse one night.”

Paranormal experiences, whether you believe in them or not, come with the territory. Though Billman prefers to keep her storytelling to history based on more conventional evidence, she said many paranormal investigators think the Marquette lighthouse is prime real estate for paranormal activity because it is on a rocky point surrounded by water.

“That seems to appeal to the ghosts,” Billman said. “Trish from 906 paranormal–we partner up and do these paranormal tours as a fundraiser.”

She said these tours sell out fast, so those interested should keep an eye out on the Maritime Museum’s social media pages.

The other structures also have historical importance, Hobbins and Billman both pointed out. One of the original boathouses still stands. And the “Captain’s residence,” an old Coast Guard bunkhouse-turned short term rental that the city leases out during the summer months, is still there. Hobbins was the head of that project and he said so far, it’s been a success. More importantly, it gives the city necessary financial resources to support the park.

“The park is something we received and did not have a budget for. You know, with the other parks, they have a way of bringing in revenue. This is a way for us to make sure we continue to take care of the property,” Hobbins said.

The rental is a unique property, Hobbins said, because it gives guests the experience of being near the woods but also close to all of the amenities downtown has to offer. Since it came on the market last year, Hobbins said the reviews have been positive.

The maritime museum also does its part financially to aid in bringing the lighthouse back to tip-top shape and preserving it for years to come.

“How it works is when the museum sells tickets to the lighthouse, we pay it to the city every month and that money goes into the fund for the city to do renovations,” Billman said.

The trails on lighthouse point are open to the public, offering a stunning view of Marquette’s lower harbor. The concrete footings that held giant radio towers once used to communicate with ships and other stations still remain. Hikers can follow the rocky path out to the end of the point, but are asked to stay off of the lighthouse steps and walkway.

Though officially decommissioned by the Coast Guard, the lighthouse still has a working Fresnel lens, the specialty glass lens that was used to reflect light at the top to help ships navigate when all other case navigation systems failed, Billman said. Many systems would have to fail for the light to be used for navigational purposes, but the structure and design of them hold a significant place in maritime history. The Maritime Museum has several different lenses on display, including a number two lens, which is the most powerful used in the Great Lakes. Lenses vary significantly in size and shape. The Marquette Lighthouse had a fourth order Fresnel lens.

The Fresnel lenses are works of art themselves, a master craft. Billman said it’s often difficult to track down someone who knows how to make or repair them. Thankfully, the Marquette Maritime museum has a special connection.

“Kurt Fosberg, one of our board members, he’s the only Fresnel lens specialist in North America,” Billman said.

Fosberg lives in Negaunee and takes orders from all over the world. He built the underworking for the lens in The Lighthouse, a major film starring Robert Pattinson.

It’s dedicated board members like Fosberg, coupled with involvement and investment from the city, that have made the slow renovation of the lighthouse possible.

“Now the city’s got this park established. One of the things that we did last season–we paid somebody to paint the tower and now we’re getting it ready to open for tours this summer. We’re hoping it’ll be ready to be toured later this summer,” Billman said.

The logistics of opening up the lighthouse tower for public tours is no light matter. Part of that process involves creating safety features, such as a weight system for the heavy hatch-like door that leads to the tower. Any changes need to be approved by the State Historic Preservation Office, so renovations are slow-moving. It’s a challenging stair climb that those who struggle with heights or steep and narrow steps may not be able to make. The area is smaller than someone who is looking up might imagine. With three people inside, it feels crowded. But the view is simply stunning.

Hobbins said future proposed improvements include more defined trails and updated displays within the lighthouse that illustrate what life was like for the lightkeepers that called it home.

Already, Hobbins said, significant improvements have been made to the area, including the work on Coast Guard Road to make the bike path safer for users.

Both Billman and Hobbins agree that, even with expensive historical requirements, preserving the lighthouse and the surrounding area remains a top priority for the City.

“This lighthouse and services provided by the Coast Guard were vital to the City of Marquette,” Hobbins said.

And though the lighthouse is no longer providing the service it was originally intended to, it has transitioned into an iconic representation of the city, providing a new service to city residents — a publicly available connection to their city’s history.

“I think it’s one of the most important landmarks in Marquette. When people think of Marquette, they think about that lighthouse. I can post something interesting on Facebook and then post the lighthouse and it gets shared like crazy,” Billman said.

“Everybody has a story with a lighthouse.”

Also, as what was once vacant city-owned land near the lakeshore fills up with private developments, this partnership between the City and the Maritime museum may give some residents a little peace of mind.

“It’s another component of making the lakeshore as publicly accessible as possible”, Hobbins added.

Even as the city of Marquette changes, from a northern outpost to a shipping epicenter and now, an outdoor recreation mecca, the lighthouse is there, giving us a moment to remember the past. And giving us a chance to reflect on how that past is there to guide the city’s future.

Alex Lehto-Clark is a poet and essayist who lives in Ishpeming. He has called the Upper Peninsula home for 12 years and graduated from Northern Michigan University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English.