Sand Island Light (Wisconsin)

For the lighthouse at the entrance to Mobile Bay, see Sand Island Light (Alabama).
Sand Island Light
Map
LocationSand Island, Wisconsin
Coordinates47°00′11.91″N 90°56′14.72″W / 47.0033083°N 90.9374222°W / 47.0033083; -90.9374222[1]
Tower
FoundationStone
ConstructionSandstone
Automated1921
Height42 feet (13 m)
ShapeOctagonal
HeritageNational Register of Historic Places contributing property Edit this on Wikidata
Light
First lit1881
Focal height56 feet (17 m)[2]
LensFourth order Fresnel lens (original), SeaLite LED Marine Lantern [3] (current)
Range9 nautical miles (17 km; 10 mi)[1]
CharacteristicWhite, flashing, 6 s[1]

The Sand Island Light is a lighthouse located on the northern tip of Sand Island, one of the Apostle Islands, in Lake Superior in Bayfield County, Wisconsin, near the city of Bayfield.

Currently owned by the National Park Service and part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, part of reference number 77000145. Listed in the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey, WI-313.

The Sand Island lighthouse consists of an octagonal tower and attached two-story dwelling, all built from brown sandstone cut from the promontory on which it stands. Visitors to the lighthouse today can still see marks on the rock ledges in front of the lighthouse that were made in the process of quarrying. The lighthouse was built to a standard Gothic Revival design already used at several light stations in Wisconsin and Michigan. The lighthouses previously built at McGulpin Point, Eagle Harbor, and White River, along with the St. Clair Flats Canal beacon (no longer standing), follow the same plan, while the Chambers Island lighthouse is a “mirror twin” to the Sand Island structure, with the same design reversed right to left. Unlike these others, which were made out of brick, the Sand Island lighthouse is constructed of brown sandstone, quarried from the ledge where it sits.[4] Subsequently, additional stone excavated at Sand Island was transported to Passage Island near Isle Royale where it was used to construct an additional mirror twin lighthouse.[5]

Evidence of quarrying on the ledge in front of the Sand Island Lighthouse, seen from the tower.
  1. ^ a b c Light List, Volume VII, Great Lakes (PDF). Light List. United States Coast Guard. 2014.
  2. ^ Pepper, Terry. "Seeing the Light: Lighthouses on the western Great Lakes".
  3. ^ Draft Historic Structure Report/Cultural Landscape Report, Sand Island Light Station US National Park Service, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, 2011.
  4. ^ Sand Island Light Station Cultural Landscape Report - Historic Structure Report, prepared for the National Park Service by Andrews & Anderson Architects PC, Golden, Colorado, 2011; “St. Clair Flats Canal Upper Lighthouse” https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=847.
  5. ^ Bayfield Press, Sept. 3, 1881; Bayfield Press, Sept. 10, 1881.