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| Gull Rock Lighthouse | Seeing The Light |
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Historical Information
Since Eleventh District construction crews were already scheduled to be in the vicinity during the 1867 season of navigation for the construction of the identical Lights on Huron Island and Granite Island, the district engineer in Detroit determined that the cost of the new light could be significantly reduced if the same structure design and construction crew were employed on the Gull Rock construction project.
According to the logbook entries of John Nolan who served as Keeper from April 1897 to May 1903, water in the passage usually began to ice over around the first week in December each year, and the Light was extinguished for the winter, and Nolan gingerly made his way to winter quarters in Copper Harbor. As the ice began to break toward the end of April, he returned to take up residence in the station. Although the entire building was cold and damp, and the illuminating apparatus dirty, Nolan reported that he usually managed to have the light illuminated on the same day as his return to the station.
After successful installation of fog signal plants at Marquette Harbor, Skillagallee, South Manitou, Outer Island and Huron Island, in 1873 the Lighthouse Board requested an appropriation for the construction of such a plant at Gull Rock, however the station was never so equipped. 1883 saw the replacement of the station's concrete walkways, and a 29 foot long boat landing was constructed on the south side of the rock in 1890, along with various minor repairs.
September 16, 1912 saw the second wreck on Gull Rock. In an attempt to escape a real gut-buster of a storm on the big, the 312 foot steel bulk freighter Spokane drove straight onto the rock and broke clean in two. As was the case with the Neelon ten years previous, while the Spokane was declared a total loss, she was subsequently recovered and rebuilt, and continued to ply the lakes for 23 years until she was scrapped in 1935.
Today, the Gull Rock Light still guides mariners through the passage, its illumination provided by a solar powered 12 volt DC 250 mm acrylic optic. At some time the Fourth Order lens was removed from the lantern and while it is reportedly on display at the Whitefish Point Light Station, recent evidence indicates that the lens displayed lens in the museum came from the old iron skeleton tower which was located on Gull Island to the west of the Beaver archipelago in Lake Michigan. The lighthouse was excessed through the National
Lighthouse Preservation Act in 2002, and in 2004 an individual who owns
property in the area partnered with the Michigan Lighthouse Foundation
to form
Gull Rock
Lightkeepers to apply for ownership of the station. The group
received ownership of the station in in June 2005, and is undertaking
the arduous task of stabilizing and restoring the station to serve
as a retreat for writers and artists. |
While
the Manitou Light was one of the first tree Lights to be built on
Superior in 1849, its location on the northeast extremity of the island
was designed to serve the regular line of navigation, and did little to
serve vessels making the emergency passage into 
Michigan Sixth District Representative
John Fletcher Driggs presented a petition of Michigan citizens praying
for the construction of a lighthouse on Gull Rock before Congress on
January 17, 1865. After consideration and approval by the Lighthouse
Board and the Department of Commerce, Congress approved an appropriation
of $15,000 for the project on July 29 of the following year.
Work on Gull Rock began at the opening
of the 1867 navigation season, with planned completion by early fall.
However the unfortunate drowning death of construction foreman William
Tunbridge while working on the rock, caused a delay in construction
until a new foreman could be selected. Construction began with the
laying of a stone foundation upon which the 1 ½ story, 2,408 square
foot 
With
the primitive living conditions and the limited space
afforded by life on the rock, Gull Island
was considered one of the most isolated and difficult stations on the
Great Lakes. With no fog signal to tend there was little to do beyond
the mandatory morning lens, lantern and lamp maintenance. While there
was barely sufficient work to keep one man busy, both a keeper and
assistant were assigned to the station, likely more to provide
companionship than to share the workload. Even so, the turnover rate for assistant
keepers was abnormally high. To ease the situation, the district
inspectors approved the appointment of a number of keepers wives to the
position of assistant over the years. In this manner, Keeper James
Corgan's wife Mary served as his assistant for all six years during
which Corgan was keeper at The Rock from 1877 through 1883. 
By virtue of its exposed location, one
would assume that the Gull Rock Light would have required constant
maintenance. However, Lighthouse Board annual reports on work performed
at the station would indicate otherwise, with few major repairs reported
over the entire active life of the station.
Superior has always been famous for its
violent November storms, and 1892 was no exception, when on November 7th
the Canadian 3-masted schooner barge G M NEELON broke away from the tow
of the steamer S L TILLEY and struck the rock in heavy seas. While the
vessel was abandoned and considered to be a total loss, she was
recovered by the wrecker J H GILLETT a year later, and after repairs was
placed back into service.
The lighthouse tender 
As a result of frequent pounding by the
waves, a 40 foot long retaining wall of
rubble masonry at the northeast corner of the dwelling in 1901, with a coping of
Portland cement added to ensure durability and effectiveness as a
barrier to water penetration. The boat landing was once again rebuilt,
and a sixty foot stone filled protecting crib constructed to help keep
ice away from the landing.
1913 was a particularly eventful year
at Gull Rock. On June 25th an acetylene illumination system was
installed in the fourth order lens. Equipped with a sun valve, the lamp
was automatically turned on at dusk and extinguished after dawn. At this
time the characteristic of the light was also changed from fixed red to
flashing red every 3 seconds and the intensity increased from 130 to 180
candlepower. The installation of a large acetylene tank allowed the
light to operate untended for long periods of time. With a resident
keeper no longer necessary to tend the light, management of the Gull
Rock light was turned over to the keepers of the Manitou Light, and Gull
Rock was secured and largely abandoned.
On November 8th, the 450 foot steel
hulled bulk freighter L C WALDO, fully loaded with iron ore was driven
ashore by a huge gale, ending up on Gull Rock. The Copper Harbor
lifesavers struggled heroically for four days to successfully rescue all
of her crew members. While she too was quickly declared a total loss,
she was later removed and rebuilt, and was sold into Canadian ownership.
The vessel subsequently moved into international trade, and ended up
sinking near Portofino, Italy while being towed to a scrap yard in
LaSpezia.