A Crib lighthouse is a type of

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

whose structure rests on a concrete or masonry foundation supported with wooden beams. The name "crib" refers to the wooden

crib pier A crib pier is a type of pier built with the supporting columns made of 'cribs'.{{cite web , url = http://www.piers.co.uk/piers.htm , title = Piers , publisher = National Piers Society The National Piers Society (NPS) is a registered charit ...

style of construction which was used as a foundation for lighthouses. When it came time to build, wooden cribs were constructed onshore then towed to the site where they were filled with stone so they sank in place. The crib was then leveled and capped with concrete or masonry on which the lighthouse structure was constructed. Crib lighthouses were built extensively in the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

region, as the hardrock bottoms of these water bodies provided ideal foundations. Problems arose however if the crib settled unevenly into the earth as was the case with the

Detroit River Light The Detroit River Light, also known as Bar Point Shoal Light, was first established as a lightship in 1875. The current sparkplug lighthouse was built in 1885. It sits in Lake Erie, south of the mouth of the Detroit River, from land and about ...

.Greenwood, Tom, ''Detroit River Light'' (September, 1998)

Lighthouse Digest ''Lighthouse Digest'', a specialty magazine from FogHorn Publishing in East Machias, Maine, is about maritime history with particular attention to the preservation of lighthouses and their past. Though it is geared toward enthusiasts and antiqu ...

. The

Spectacle Reef Light Spectacle Reef Light is a lighthouse east of the Straits of Mackinac and is located at the northern end of Lake Huron, Michigan. It was designed and built by Colonel Orlando Metcalfe Poe and Major Godfrey Weitzel, and was the most expensive lig ...

is an example of this type of structure.

References

Lighthouses Marine architecture Foundations (buildings and structures) {{Pharology-stub

See also

References