Friday, July 27th, 2007

One of the other things to check out in Silver Lake State Park is the Little Sable Point Light.  I won’t fill this entry with all kinds of history of the lighthouse because Terry Pepper has done a great job of researching the history of this light as well as other lighthouses of the Western Great Lakes and his research for Little Sable Point can be enjoyed here.

One of the most interesting things about this lighthouse is that when it was completed in 1873 the exterior was left in it’s natural brick color.  The bricks were very hard and durable and it was felt that they could withstand the weather just fine.  Soon, however, complaints started to pour in from mariners that they could not see the natural brown of the lighthouse during the daylight hours.  So in 1900 the lighthouse was painted white.  This meant that repainting the lighthouse became an annual chore that the lightkeeper had escaped up to this point.

But in 1977, with the Coast Guard looking to reduce maintenance costs wherever possible, a crew arrived at the light and sandblasted all the white paint off leaving it in it’s original condition.  Today it still lights up every night and shines across Lake Michigan.

There’s a society that volunteers to help with the upkeep of the light and they also allow tours so during our trip we were able to climb the lighthouse and get a great view from the top.  We paid $2 for me and $1 for each of the kids.  That price gets you a good workout and a sticker you receive at the top that says “I Climbed Little Sable.”  It’s the little things.

Here are some pictures of the lighthouse I took as well as pictures I took when we were at the top of the over 100′ structure.  It was a little hazy but we could still see pretty far.