Lighthouse News

Well, we all know that Michigan is number one as the state with the most lighthouses (about 120), but which county has the most? That’s the tongue-in-cheek question that was posed by the Capital Times in Wisconsin the other day. According to the story, Door County, Wisconsin, claims that title.

Not so, says Roland Babineau of Massachusetts, even though county and state officials have bragged about it for years, claiming ten lighthouses (it actually only has eight according to the Wisconsin Travel Bureau site). From the story:

A lot of times we hear of various road races for charity associated with lighthouses, such as the Beach to Beacon 10K event in Portland, Maine, which runs from Crescent Beach State Park to Portland Head Lighthouse Or the Lighthouse to Lighthouse Race on Long Island, which uses human powered seaworthy vessels to race the fourteen miles starting on the south side of Compo Beach, winding around Cockenoe Island, going around Pecks Ledge Lighthouse, then head south to Greens Ledge Lighthouse and come back along the same course to finish in front of Compo Beach. But two recent charity events this past weekend associated with lighthouses caught the eye.

Absecon Lighthouse, New Jersey, is celebrating its 150th birthday this year, and those wishing to get married at a lighthouse have it a lot easier than before. Jean Muchanic, executive director of the Inlet Public/Private Association, which runs the lighthouse, became an interfaith minister in order to provide wedding services to those wanting to marry in the shadow of New Jersey’s tallest lighthouse.

International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend united amateur radio operators with each other, via 380 lighthouses and lightships in 51 countries over the weekend of August 18 and 19, 2007. This annual event is organized by the Ayr Amateur Radio Group (Scotland) and takes place on the third weekend in August. It now coincides with International Lighthouse Day sponsored by the International Association of Lighthouse Keepers, United Kingdom, which endeavors to have as many of the participating lighthouses and lightships open to the public for the Sunday.

A Scottish lighthouse, Covesea at Lossiemouth, will have a wedding ceremony performed at it for the first time in its 163 year history. Covesea Lighthouse was built by Alan Stevenson, who is a son of Robert Stevenson, a Scottish engineer responsible for building fifteen lighthouses in the country and Engineer to the Lighthouse Board. Alan Stevenson has thirteen lights to his credit, and is the uncle to Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. The story mentions the former lighthouse keeper’s cottage as available for renting.

A month ago, Lighthouse News wrote about the access problems faced at Port San Luis Lighthouse. Since that time there have been other cases pop up that limit access to historic beacons. One facing that problem is the recently accessed Old Saybrook Lighthouse, featured on Connecticut’s lighthouse license plate. Property owners at the end of the only road leading through the gated commumnity of Fenwick, are resistant to the idea of people coming through their town to view the light. One of the requirements of the National Lighthouse Preservation Act of 200 is to open the lighthouse to the public for educational purposes. Because of the restricted access at this point, the NPS hasn’t put out a property description and application, until the problems of access are worked out.

Visitors will be able to tour the Round Island Lighthouse in the Straits of Mackinac for the first time during an Open House Saturday, August 18, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT. The Open House is hosted by the Hiawatha National Forest, Boy Scout Troop 323 from Freeland, and Friends of the Round Island Lighthouse, Inc.

www.roundislandlighthouse.com/index.htm

National Lighthouse Day (August 7) was a slow news day, so Lighthouse News went down to Pemaquid Point Park to see the festivities, and check out the restoration progress. The town of Bristol and the Friends of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse cooperated to make a nice time for the little ones, and although the Point was foggy (as is often the case), it was a nice day. Children were making little lighthouses, enjoying the refreshments, and adults were lined up to climb the tower. There was a great surf, and many were down on the rocks shooting photos of the breakers crashing into the cliffs.

Mississippi will join numerous other states this October when their current license plate, with a magnolia on it, is replaced with a new one featuring the Biloxi Lighthouse. The state is required by law to change their tags every five years, and the new design, with a sunrise behind the lighthouse, is meant to represent the recovery of the coastal areas from the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. The Biloxi Lighthouse is Mississippi’s only lighthouse, and is a private aid to navigation owned by the city of Biloxi.

Mississippi will join Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, all of which have a lighthouse license plate, either as a regular plate, or as a special purchase.

With the advent of radar, LORAN, GPS, and other electronic aids to navigation, one would think that lighthouses are outmoded, and that none have been built since the early twentieth century. Well, actually, that would be a wrong assumption. A few lighthouses have been built in the twenty first century, and more are planned. Two of the latest planned lights are Oak Orchard Lighthouse at Point Breeze, New York, and one at Walker City Park in Walker, Minnesota.