|
Old Mackinac Point Light
Old Mackinac Point Light is a deactivated lighthouse located at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula in the U.S. state of Michigan. The lighthouse is part of Fort Michilimackinac State Park in the village of Mackinaw City just east of the Mackinac Bridge. The lighthouse was constructed in 1892 along the Straits of Mackinac at the junction of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. It was deactivated in 1957 and currently serves as a museum. History Preparations Even before the advent of European explorers, the Straits of Mackinac were a significant hazard to water borne travelers. Consequently, before lighthouses, the Ojibwa lit the shore with fires. In the early 19th century, with large vessel traffic increasing from Lake Huron into the Straits, the first step in guarding the Straits was taken in 1829, through the construction of Bois Blanc Lighthouse to both guide mariners in making the westerly turn into the Straits, and to warn them of the shoals and shallows surrounding t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mackinaw City, Michigan
Mackinaw City ( ) is a village in Emmet and Cheboygan counties in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 846 at the 2010 census, the population increases during summertime, including an influx of tourists and seasonal workers who serve in the shops, hotels, and other recreational facilities in the area. Mackinaw City is at the northern tip (headland) of Michigan's Lower Peninsula along the southern shore of the Straits of Mackinac. Across the straits lies the state's Upper Peninsula. These two land masses are physically connected by the Mackinac Bridge, which runs from Mackinaw City north to St. Ignace. Mackinaw City is also the primary base for ferry service to Mackinac Island, located to the northeast in the straits. According to AAA's 2009 TripTik requests, Mackinaw City is the most popular tourist spot in the state of Michigan. Local attractions include Fort Michilimackinac, the Mackinac Bridge, the Mackinaw Crossings shopping mall, Mill Creek, the Old Mackinac P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
How Stuff Works
HowStuffWorks is an American commercial infotainment website founded by professor and author Marshall Brain, to provide its target audience an insight into the way many things work. The site uses various media to explain complex concepts, terminology, and mechanisms—including photographs, diagrams, videos, animations, and articles. The website was acquired by Discovery Communications in 2007 but was sold to Blucora in 2014. The site has since expanded out into podcasting, focusing on factual topics. In December 2016, HowStuffWorks, LLC became a subsidiary of OpenMail, LLC, later renamed System1. In 2018, the podcast division of the company, which had been spun-off by System1 under the name Stuff Media, was acquired by iHeartMedia for $55 million. History In 1998, North Carolina State University instructor Marshall Brain started the site as a hobby. In 1999, Brain raised venture capital and formed HowStuffWorks, Inc. In March 2002, HowStuffWorks was sold to the Convex Group, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Saint Marie
SS is an abbreviation for ''Schutzstaffel'', a paramilitary organisation in Nazi Germany. SS, Ss, or similar may also refer to: Places *Guangdong Experimental High School (''Sheng Shi'' or ''Saang Sat''), China *Province of Sassari, Italy (vehicle plate code) *South Sudan (ISO 3166-1 code SS) *SS postcode area, UK, around Southend-on-Sea *San Sebastián, Spanish city Arts, entertainment, and media *SS (band), an early Japanese hardcore punk band * ''SS'' (manga), a Japanese comic 2000-2003 *SS Entertainment, a Korean entertainment company *''S.S.'', for Sosthenes Smith, H. G. Wells pseudonym for story ''A Vision of the Past'' *SS, the production code for the 1968 ''Doctor Who'' serial ''The Wheel in Space'' *''Sesame Street'', American kids' TV show Language * Ss (digraph) used in Pinyin * ß or ss, a German-language ligature * switch-reference in linguistics *''Scilicet'', used as a section sign * (''in the strict sense'') in Latin *Swazi language (ISO 639-1 code "ss") Scien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Chief Wawatam
''Chief Wawatam'' (nicknamed ''the Chief'') was a coal-fired steel ship that was based, for most of its 1911–1984 working life, in St. Ignace, Michigan. The vessel was named after a distinguished Ojibwa chief of the 1760s. In initial revenue service, the ''Chief Wawatam'' served as a train ferry, passenger ferry and icebreaker that operated year-round at the Straits of Mackinac between St. Ignace and Mackinaw City, Michigan. During the winter months, it sometimes took many hours to cross the five-mile-wide Straits, and ''Chief Wawatam'' was fitted with complete passenger hospitality spaces. ''Chief Wawatam's'' work began to change in the 1940s. Its role as an icebreaker stationed in the upper Great Lakes was supplanted in 1944 by USCGC Mackinaw (WAGB-83), USCGC ''Mackinaw'', a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker. The ship's passenger traffic dropped off in the years following World War II. The remaining passenger service ended with the completion of the Mackinac Bridge in 1957 that c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railroad Car Ferries
A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ferries are sometimes referred to as "car ferries", as distinguished from "auto ferries" used to transport automobiles. The wharf (sometimes called a "slip") has a ramp, and a linkspan or "apron", balanced by weights, that connects the railway proper to the ship, allowing for tidal or seasonal changes in water level. While railway vehicles can be and are shipped on the decks or in the holds of ordinary ships, purpose-built train ferries can be quickly loaded and unloaded by roll-on/roll-off, especially as several vehicles can be loaded or unloaded at once. A train ferry that is a barge is called a car float or rail barge. History An early train ferry was established as early as 1833 by the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. To extend the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fresnel Lens
A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. A Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) form of the lens was first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel. The ''catadioptric'' form of the lens, entirely invented by Fresnel, has outer elements that use total internal reflection as well as refraction; it can capture more oblique light from a light source and add it to the beam of a lighthouse, making the light visible from greater distances. Description The Fresnel lens redu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indiana Limestone
Indiana limestone — also known as Bedford limestone in the building trade — has long been an economically important building material, particularly for monumental public structures. Indiana limestone is a more common term for Salem Limestone, a geological formation primarily quarried in south central Indiana, USA, between the cities of Bloomington and Bedford. It has been called the best quarried limestone in the United States. Indiana limestone, like all limestone, is a rock primarily formed of calcium carbonate. It was deposited over millions of years as marine fossils decomposed at the bottom of a shallow inland sea which covered most of the present-day Midwestern United States during the Mississippian Period. History Native Americans were the first people to discover limestone in Indiana. Not long after they arrived, American settlers used this rock around their windows and doors and for memorials around the towns. The first quarry was started in 1827, and by 1929 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properties with various title designations. The U.S. Congress created the agency on August 25, 1916, through the National Park Service Organic Act. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., within the main headquarters of the Department of the Interior. The NPS employs approximately 20,000 people in 423 individual units covering over 85 million acres in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories. As of 2019, they had more than 279,000 volunteers. The agency is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management while also making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment. History Yellowstone National Park was created as the first national par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cord (volume)
The cord is a unit of measure of dry volume used to measure firewood and pulpwood in the United States and Canada. A cord is the amount of wood that, when "racked and well stowed" (arranged so pieces are aligned, parallel, touching and compact), occupies a volume of . This corresponds to a well-stacked woodpile high, wide, and deep; or any other arrangement of linear measurements that yields the same volume. The name ''cord'' probably comes from the use of a cord or string to measure it. The cord-foot was a US unit of volume for stacked firewood, four feet long, four feet wide and one foot high—equal to one eighth of a cord. Symbol for the unit was cd-ft. Definitions In Canada, the cord is legally defined by Measurement Canada. The cord is one of three legal standards for the sale of firewood in Canada: stacked cubic metre (or stere), cubic foot, and cord. The preferred unit of measurement for firewood is the stacked cubic metre. In the United States, the cord is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foghorn
A foghorn or fog signal is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of navigational hazards such as rocky coastlines, or boats of the presence of other vessels, in foggy conditions. The term is most often used in relation to marine transport. When visual navigation aids such as lighthouses are obscured, foghorns provide an audible warning of rock outcrops, shoals, headlands, or other dangers to shipping. Description All foghorns use a vibrating column of air to create an audible tone, but the method of setting up this vibration differs. Some horns, such as the Daboll trumpet, used vibrating plates or metal reeds, a similar principle to a modern electric car horn. Others used air forced through holes in a rotating cylinder or disk, in the same manner as a siren. Semi-automatic operation of foghorns was achieved by using a clockwork mechanism (or "coder") to sequentially open the valves admitting air to the horns; each horn was given its own timing characteristics to help marine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Lighthouse Board
The United States Lighthouse Board was the second agency of the U.S. federal government, under the Department of Treasury, responsible for the construction and maintenance of all lighthouses and navigation aids in the United States, between 1852 and 1910. The new agency was created following complaints of the shipping industry of the previous administration of lighthouses under the Treasury's Lighthouse Establishment, which had had jurisdiction since 1791, and since 1820, been under the control of Stephen Pleasonton. The quasi-military board first met on April 28, 1851, and with its establishment, the administration of lighthouses and other aids to navigation would take their largest leap toward modernization since the inception of federal government control.Amy K. Marshall "Frequently Close to the Point of Peril: A History of Buoys and Tenders in U.S. Coastal Waters, 1789–1939'", A Master's Thesis In 1910, the Lighthouse Board was disestablished in favor of a more civilian Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McGulpin Point Light
McGulpin Point Light was constructed as a navigational aid through the Straits of Mackinac. The light began operation in 1869, making it one of the oldest surviving lighthouses in the Straits. Only in operation until 1906, the light is located on McGulpin Point, (500 Headlands Road), approximately west of Fort Michilimackinac. McGulpin Point Lighthouse & Historic Site has been owned by Emmet County since 2008 and the facility has been an official private Aid to Navigation on the NOAA chart map since 2009.https://www.mcgulpinpoint.org/history/, McGulpin Point Lighthouse & Historic Sitehttps://www.emmetcounty.org/parks-recreation/mcgulpin-point-lighthouse/, McGulpin Point Lighthouse Tours were available during the 2019 season for a small fee.https://www.mcgulpinpoint.org/, Welcome to McGulpin Point History Design and operation The McGulpin Point Light, a true lighthouse with a light tower and attached lighthouse keeper's living quarters, was completed by the United States Ligh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
