On 07/13/2011 we continue our trip to MI by stopping at Thousand Trails Kenisee Lake Resort in Jefferson, OH. During our week stay on 07/16/2011 we visited Conneaut West Breakwater Lighthouse, Ashtabula Lighthouse, and Ashtabula Maritime Museum. The port was first marked by a lighthouse on a pier in 1835. By 1885, the pier had become too deteriorated, and a light was exhibited from a tower located adjacent to the keeper’s dwelling, which had been constructed at the end of Harbor Street in 1873. In the 1890s a new Conneaut Lighthouse was built at the end of a pier. This lighthouse served until 1917, when at a cost of $125,000, a new lighthouse was built on a cement crib, located at the end of a long breakwater on the west side of the harbor. This lighthouse consisted of a unique, square two-story brick and cement edifice, with a tower rising an additional story from one corner. In 1935, the cement lighthouse was blasted from its bedrock grip on the crib using dynamite and was replaced by a new, sleek tower costing $70,000. This modern lighthouse was nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places by the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office in 1992. The petition was reviewed by Patrick Andrews and subsequently added to the list. Regarding the lighthouse, Andrews said that “in the 1930s there was a conscious effort to represent the machine age, speed and efficiency. The style of this lighthouse is a clear attempt to look modern and to make a break from the past.” Upon completion, the 11,000-candlepower light source atop the shaft produced a beam that could be seen seventeen miles out into Lake Erie. The picture is of the Conneaut West Breakwater Lighthouse.
In 1905, Ashtabula River was widened, and a break-wall was built to protect the harbor. A third lighthouse, the one still in use today, was built atop the new breakwater. Originally, the lighthouse was located approximately 2,500 feet north of the river entrance and the 1876 lighthouse. The new light stood 40 feet high and was made of steel and iron. The river-widening project left the old lighthouse 60 feet out into the river and away from the pier. Both lights were accessible by boat only. In 1915, the 1905 stone break-wall was extended, and a year later, the lighthouse was moved to its present site, approximately 1,750 feet NNE of its previous site. The lighthouse was doubled in size making it large enough to house the light keepers. According to the Coast Guard, a new fourth-order Fresnel lens was installed in the tower the same year, and a radio beacon tower was built next to the lighthouse. The picture is of the Ashtabula Lighthouse from across the street from the Ashtabula Maritime Museum.
Visit the Ashtabula Maritime Museum, the former home of the Ashtabula light keepers and the Coast Guard Chief, built in 1871/1898. We have seven (7) rooms full of displays, models and artifacts. The museum contains models, paintings, maritime artifacts, photos of early Ashtabula Harbor, ore boats and tugs, miniature hand-made brass tools that actually work, and the world’s only working scale model of a Hulett Ore Unloading Machine. Construction has begun in 2010 to build interactive model train layouts of the Ashtabula Harbor circa 1940-50. The picture is of Ashtabula Maritime Museum courtesy of Ashtabula Maritime Museum.
Then on 07/17/2011 we visited Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Lighthouse and Fairport Harbor Lighthouse. This charming 42-foot tower, with its attached two-story keeper’s cottage, sits near the end of the west breakwater protecting the man-made harbor of Fairport. The harbor, in turn, protects the mouth of the Grand River, which has served as one of the region’s most important commercial hubs. The present breakwater lighthouse is not the first light to mark the breakwater, as a skeletal tower stood on the breakwater before 1925. Before the breakwater was constructed, piers had been extended from each side of the river’s mouth. Congress appropriated $1,000 in 1825 for the first pier. In 1831, a similar sum was allocated for a beacon light on the pier. This amount was not sufficient as $1,456 had to be granted in 1834 to complete the beacon. In an 1838 report to the Secretary of the Treasury, Lieutenant C.T. Platt noted how mariners could use the pier-head beacon. “The beacon, on the east pier forming the harbor, is lighted with four lamps and is in perfect order. This pier extends six hundred feet into the lake. The west pier extends nine hundred feet. By bringing the lighthouse and beacon in range, in-coming from the west, there is no difficulty in entering the harbor.” Over the years the piers were incrementally extended farther into the lake, and the existing beacons were either relocated to the outer end of the pier or replaced by new beacons. The piers still exist today, protected within the confines of the breakwaters and are marked by modern beacons. The picture is of the Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Lighthouse from the Headland Beach State Park.
