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| Sand Island Lighthouse | Seeing The Light |
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Historical Information Rather than designing a new structure from scratch, Weitzel chose to use a design that had already been used successfully at McGulpin's Point 1868, Eagle Harbor in 1871 and White River in 1875. While these three stations had all been constructed of brick, with a plentiful supply of Apostle Island Brownstone readily available, the decision was made to use this material in building the Sand Island station. While it would be fanciful to believe that this was a decision based on aesthetic considerations, it is far more likely that the material was selected in order to minimize the costs associated with shipping heavy building materials such a long distance from the Detroit depot. Work began on Sand Island on June 6, 1881 with the arrival of the lighthouse tender AMARANTH to deliver a work crew and materials on the island. After constructing temporary living quarters for the crew, timber cribs 80 feet in length and 8 feet in width were sunk in the lake to create both a landing and protected harbor for the station boat and some 8 acres of thick woods were cleared for the buildings, and to afford a clear arc of visibility for the new light. The rough stone was quarried, and work began on dressing the stone to working dimensions on June 27. With the delivery of the stone to the work site soon thereafter, the work crew turned its attention to the lighthouse itself.
Atop the tower, the gallery floor was sheathed with copper, and surrounded by an iron hand-railing to provide security to keepers when cleaning the plate glass panes in the octagonal lantern. As construction neared completion, Mr. Crump the District Lampist arrived and installed the station's fixed white Fourth Order Fresnel lens, which by virtue of the station's location atop a bluff sat at a focal plane of 52 feet. Charles Lederle was appointed as Acting Keeper of the Sand Island Light Station, and arriving at the station on September 24, 1881 quickly set about moving his belongings into the new dwelling, exhibiting the light for the first time the following day evening, September 25, 1881. The following year, the Lighthouse Board was considering the installation of steam fog whistles at both Sand and Raspberry Island, however consideration of the Sand Island fog signal was dropped, and funds were subsequently only requested for an installation on Raspberry. On August 25 of this same year, Charles Lederle was appointed to the position of permanent Keeper of the Sand Island Light. A work crew arrived on Sand Island in the summer of 1886, and began work on a boat house and improved crib protection, completing the project on September 3.
Luick found a second wife, Oramill, and with her support continued to serve as Keeper of the Sand Island light for the following sixteen years. Whether Luick was a good trainer, or just plain difficult to work with is as yet unknown, however over those sixteen years he went through twelve Assistants, with the longest tenure of any of them being only two years, and seven of them resigning from the service.
With the activation of the automated
light, Emmanuel Luick accepted a transfer to the Grand Marais, Minnesota
light station after a remarkably long twenty-nine years of service at
Sand Island. Luick continued to serve at Grand Marais until he retired
from lighthouse service in 1937 at 71 years of age, passing away 10
years thereafter. We returned late the following morning, and while the water was not smooth enough to allow us to tie up against the rocks in front of the station, the pilot was able to bring the nose of the boat close to the rocks, allowing us to jump off the bow onto the rocks. This station had never
served as quarters for any coast guardsmen, and thus it had managed to
escape the standard "white, gray and safety yellow" paint
scheme throughout its interior. As a result, we were surprised at the
comfortable and homey atmosphere the building exuded. Apostle Island Cruise Services may be contacted at the following address: For information on the Keeper
Of The Light Celebration, contact: |
Apostle Islands which lead to the harbors of
LaPointe and Ashland. However, in practice its light was not visible to
mariners until they were fully abreast of Sand Island, from which an
underwater ridge with only 3 to seven feet of water stretched south to
the mainland. Soon after the establishment of light on Raspberry,
mariners began to call for a light on the north shore of Sand Island, to
better guide them toward Raspberry Island and the channel, and warn of
the dangerous ridge to the south. The Lighthouse Board heeded their call
in its 1871 annual report to Congress, requesting an appropriation of
$18,000 for the construction of a light on Sand Island. Although
Congress elected to ignore the request, convinced of the need for
lighting the island, the Board continued to restate its case in each of
its annual reports for the following six years. Congress finally
responded with the requested appropriation in 1880, and 11th District
Engineer Major Godfrey Weitzel set about planning for the station's
construction at the opening of the following navigation season.
After blasting out a hole for the
cellar, the masons crafted a two-story dwelling, 26' x 30' in plan with
an integrated 44-foot tall tower oriented diagonally into its
northwestern corner. The exterior of the first and second stories of the
tower were approximately ten feet square with buttressed corners, while
the tower's upper portion consisted of a ten-foot octagon. The tower was
double-walled, with a circular inner wall approximately four inches
thick and eight feet in diameter. This cylindrical inner wall supported
a cast iron spiral staircase which wound from two general-purpose areas
and an oil storage room in the cellar to a hatch in the lantern floor.
Since these spiral stairs also served as the only means of moving
between floors in the dwelling, steel doors provided access to landings
on both the first and second floors to prevent the spread of any fire in
either the dwelling or tower. The first floor contained a parlor,
kitchen and two bedrooms, and the second floor two additional bedrooms
and a closet. Almost as an afterthought, a summer kitchen was built in
the form of an addition to the rear of the building.
Although Sand Island was located far
enough from Bayfield to make trips to town in the station's small sail
boat a full day undertaking, life for Lederle was not as isolated as it
was for many keepers of island stations. Sand Island was the only island
in the Apostles chain besides Madeline, to sustain a year-round
population with two distinct settlements. While Shaw Point, the largest
of the two communities, was located at the opposite end of the island,
Camp Stella was situated a short two miles from the lighthouse, and
Lederle was able to interact with the Norwegian farmers and fishermen
who called Camp Stella home. Even so, Lederle likely viewed the news
that he had been offered a transfer to the new station under
construction at 
Life at Sand Island appears to have
been relatively uneventful for the Luicks through the end of the century
until Emmanuel fell seriously ill in 1901. Completely bed-ridden, and
without the benefit of an assistant to fill in for him, there was no
alternative but for Ella to assume his responsibilities for the three
weeks of his illness. From all accounts Ella did a landmark job. However
the incident pointed out the potential problems associated with having a
single keeper at such a remote station, and Eleventh District Inspector
Commander J. C. Wilson authorized the addition of an Assistant Keeper at
Sand Island at the opening of the following season of navigation. Henry
A Irvine was hired to fill the position, and reported for duty on May
22, 1902. Soon thereafter, a work crew arrived on the island and
replaced the stone-filled dock protection cribs, constructed a 16 foot
long walkway up the bluff from the dock to the station, and built a 360
gallon capacity oil storage building.
Henry Irvine's stay at Sand Island was
relatively short, as he was transferred to 
Later that year, on September 2, 1905,
Sand Island's only major shipwreck occurred. Seeking shelter among the
islands from the biggest blow in thirty years, the 372- foot bulk
steamer SEVONA struck a shoal to the northeast of Sand Island. As the
vessel split in two and began breaking-up, the Chief Engineer in the
rear section gave the order to lower the life boats and abandon ship.
Eleven crew members and passengers were loaded into two life boats,
barely making it to shore through the immense waves crashing over the
wreckage. Without the benefit of a life boat in the forward section of
the vessel, the ship's Captain and six crew members attempted to make it
to shore clinging to one of the vessel's hatch cover. However, unable to
cling on to their makeshift raft in the huge seas, all seven perished in
Superior's perpetually frigid waters. Click 
By the end of the second decade of the
twenty-first century, shipping patterns in Superior had changed
dramatically, and with fewer vessels heading into Bayfield and Ashland
from the west, the importance of the Sand Island Light waned. Concurrent
to this change, advances in the use of automated acetylene lighting had
allowed the Lighthouse Bureau to successfully automate a number of
stations. With such systems being able to operate without human
intervention for months at a time the decision was made to install an
acetylene system at Sand Island. Effectively eliminating the expense of
a resident keeper and assistant, observation and maintenance of the
automated light would be added to the list of responsibilities of the
keepers at Raspberry Island.
A 375 mm lens lantern with a
750-candlepower acetylene illumination system was installed atop a 48
foot steel skeletal tower, and exhibited for the first time on the
evening of April 23, 1921. In order to conserve fuel, the characteristic
of the light was changed from fixed to flashing, with a repeated cycle
consisting of a 1.5 second flash followed by 8.5 seconds of
darkness. 