Channel & Lighthouses
A summer Sunday on the north bank of the lower channel. A family plus its dog poses near the wooden sidewalk that led to the bluff edge where it met the north pier trestle that led to the lighthouse. At left is the Fountain City House hotel, Charlevoix’s first. The schooner Rosa Belle is tied to the revetment, ready to be towed into Lake Michigan. From the billowing of the skirt of the woman in front of the roller mill, it appears that high winds may be preventing the schooner from attempting to enter Lake Michigan until they subside. Schooners often waited like this in the channel.
The first lighthouse was erected in 1885 at the end of the north pier. The trestle allowed access by the light keeper. Construction expenses totaled $4,000 for both the structure and trestle. The lantern’s fifth-order Fresnel lens cost an additional $1,500. On a clear night, the light it produced could be seen about thirteen miles into Lake Michigan. At first the trestle was made of wood, seen here, but metal replaced this vulnerable material soon after the turn of the century. The oil storage building at right was constructed in 1890.
The wood lighthouse, known to the townspeople as “Old Reliable,” was moved to the south pier around, it is believed, 1911. The precise moving date and reason have never been discovered, nor the method of transfer. Before the move, in 1909 this fog signal bell had been suspended on a timber frame placed against the west side of the light. Its striking arm passed through a hole in the wall to a clock mechanism inside the “watch” room. The bell was struck twice, then twenty seconds of silence, one strike, another twenty seconds of silence, then the pattern repeated.
Every winter, it was expected that the lighthouse would receive a massive coating of ice, like it has here in the mid 1930s. Extremely high winds might lift the crest of a wave that broke on the pier end all the way over the top of the light, a distance of about forty feet
Longtime Charlevoix photographer Bob Miles took this, his signature work, in February of 1935. The temperature stood at minus two. A huge storm had passed, but the wind was still howling. The water was very low that year, which caused the waves to hit the pier with great force. He waited in the bone-chilling cold until the perfect wave was ready to break. In an instant before he clicked the shutter, the sun broke through the clouds to bathe the scene in a brilliant light. To many people, this photo alone expresses the essence of Charlevoix.
The unstable lighthouse was taken out in 1948 and this steel structure took its place. But the original 1885 black lantern that housed the lens at the top was found to be in excellent condition. It was removed and reinstalled by helicopter on the top of the new lighthouse. The lantern was entirely restored in 2008. The lighthouse was painted white from 1968 to 2009. On the north pier, the tall openwork white structure was erected not long after the switch of 1911. Its white light stood sixty-one feet above the pier. This tower was removed in the 1980s and replaced by a stubby short one.
“Gloriously the dawn greets Charlevoix, the Beautiful and when, at close of day, the summer sun with its golden smile sinks slowly to his western home, leaving a path of light across the waters of Lake Michigan, and crimson and purple clouds float softly overhead, sweetly and gently the Northern Twilight reaches down and wraps the town in a mantle of rest.” -Rosa Nettleton, 1926