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| Plum Island Range Lights | Seeing The Light |
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Historical
Information
On May 28 1858, title to the 3.5-acre island then known as Port Du Morts was transferred to the Lighthouse board for the construction of the new light station, and later that same year the Plum Island station was abandoned, and a new station reconstructed on Pilot Island. Without maintenance, the old Plum Island lighthouse quickly began to deteriorate, and by 1863 the roof had caved-in, leaving only the chimney and four crumbling walls.
Congress ignored the Board's recommendation until February 15, 1893 when an appropriation was finally approved, however no monies were appropriates for the project, and without funding, work could not begin.
Chosen as the station's first keeper, Martin Knudson was transferred from Pilot Island, and exhibited the lights for the first time on May 1, 1897.
Completing the station was a large duplex brick keeper's dwelling with a tramway for carrying supplies from a pier on the shore and a brick fog signal building equipped with a steam-operated siren.
The wooden front range light was replaced with a steel skeletal tower in 1964, and both lights were automated in 1969.
David Robb was a Coastie stationed at
Plum Island in the early sixties. In corresponding with David, he
graciously offered to write his recollections of life on Plum Island.
What resulted was a vivid recounting of life at the Plum Island station,
Search and Rescue missions through the Door, and service trips to some
of the offshore light stations in Green Bay and northern Lake Michigan. Click
here or on the image of David to the left to read his
recounting if his time on Plum Island. First, Plum Island can be seen from the Washington Island Ferry, when making the trip from the Door peninsula to Washington Island. For a closer view,
there are a number of charter boat services which offer closer trips
around the island. One of the most convenient and best is operated by
the Shoreline
Resort at Gills Rock. At $19.95, their narrated lighthouse cruise
aboard their converted Navy P.B.R. includes close-up passes of Plum and
Pilot Islands, along with views of Washington and Detroit Islands. |
Complaining that the light was located
too far west of the passage entrance to be of any use to shipping,
various influential maritime interests lobbied he Lighthouse Board to
move the light to a more easterly location where it would better suit
its' intended purpose.
With continuing growth in vessel
traffic through the Passage, in 1890 the Lighthouse Board recommended to
Congress that an appropriation of $21,000 be made to construct range lights and a fog signal
on the
southwesterly portion of Plum Island to help guide vessels between Plum
Island and the tip of the peninsula.
Finally,
in 1895, as a result of a
number or wrecks in the passage, the Life Saving Service requested that
they receive funding for the construction of life saving station on Plum
Island. With a double purpose planned for the Island, and on March 15 of
that year Congress acted
with the necessary appropriations for the construction of both
facilities. In August of the following year, a
thirty-man crew was deposited on the island, and work began with
clearing the thick forest for their work camp, and a large clearing
between the planned locations of the range lights. Over the following
four months, a barn, boathouse, docks, fog signal building and twenty
five hundred feet of wooden walkways took shape.
They also cleared a site for the fog
signal and a connecting roadway. The crew built a barn, boathouse, and
several piers. At the same time, they built the concrete foundation for
the rear range light and began building the two-story brick keeper's
dwelling. Finally on December 4th, 1896, with their work complete, the
crew packed-up and abandoned the island for the winter.
The front light was a virtual duplicate
of the Front Range light built at Bailey's Harbor some twenty-seven
years earlier. With a square base and an octagonal second story,
integrated lantern room contained a fixed red 
Some sixteen hundred feet to the north,
the rear range light consisted of a white cylindrical tower containing a
tightly spiraling staircase. Atop the central cylinder sat a circular
watch room some eight feet in diameter with surrounding gallery, and an
octagonal iron lantern room with its own smaller gallery. From the watch
room gallery, four cylindrical legs reached out to the ground to provide
support for the gallery and lantern room, equipped with a fixed red 
With the Coast Guard's assumption of
responsibility for the lighthouses of the United States in 1939, the
piers and boathouse were removed, and the dwelling was emptied, and the
crew assigned to the light moved to share the Life Saving Station.
