The Outer Island lighthouse is a

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 ...

located on the northern tip of Outer Island, one of the

Apostle Islands The Apostle Islands are a group of 22 islands in Lake Superior, off the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin. The majority of the islands are located in Ashland County—only Sand, York, Eagle, and Raspberry Islands are located in Ba ...

, in

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

in Ashland County,

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, near the city of Bayfield. The light was designed by

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 ...

Eleventh District Chief Engineer Orlando Poe and constructed under the supervision of his successor,

Godfrey Weitzel Godfrey (Gottfried) Weitzel (November 1, 1835 – March 19, 1884) was a German-American major general in the Union army during the American Civil War. He was the acting Mayor of New Orleans during the Union occupation of the city and also captured ...

. Currently owned by the

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 propertie ...

and part of the

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is a U.S. national lakeshore consisting of 21 islands (Apostle Islands) and shoreline encompassing on the northern tip of Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Superior. It is known for its collection of historic ...

, it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1977, part of reference number 77000145. It is listed in the Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey, WI-318. The lighthouse is attached to a two-story, red brick keeper's quarters.

Access

Most of the Apostle Islands light stations may be reached on the Apostle Islands Cruise Service water taxi or by private boat during the summer. During the Annual Apostle Island Lighthouse Celebration ferry tour service is available for all the lighthouses. In the tourist season, volunteer park rangers are on many of the islands to greet visitors.

Erosion control

In 2004–2005, the National Park Service undertook a significant

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

control project at Outer Island, to stabilize the bluff which had proved susceptible to erosion since the station's earliest days. The project followed a similar effort completed the previous year at the Raspberry Island Lighthouse, and consisted of a three-part strategy: armoring the cliff base with a massive stone wall; improving drainage on the upper grounds to prevent runoff from undercutting the clay bank; and stabilizing the bluff face with "bio-engineering," i.e. planting carefully selected vegetation to anchor the slope. The rock wall at the bottom and drainage system at the top were completed, but a shortage of funds required scaling back the bio-engineering plans, and only the most critical sections of the bluff face were treated.

Notable incidents

On September 2, 1905, Outer Island Keeper John Irvine performed a heroic rescue, when the 337-foot, three-masted schooner-barge

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

lost the line to its towing steamer ''Venezuela'' during a fierce storm. The ''Pretoria'' attempted to anchor about off the island, but when the ship began to break up, the ten-man crew attempted to flee in a lifeboat. Sixty-one-year-old keeper Irvine was alone on the island, his assistants having gone to town, but when the lifeboat flipped in the surf, he waded into the waves and rescued five of the ten men. On that same night, the steamer Sevona also sank in the Apostle Islands, striking a reef near the Sand Island Lighthouse, with the loss of seven men. This double tragedy preceded the better-known

Mataafa Storm The Mataafa Storm of 1905, was a storm that occurred on the Great Lakes on November 27–28, 1905. The system moved across the Great Basin with moderate depth on November 26 and November 27, then east-northeastward across the Great Lakes on Novemb ...

by several weeks.David C. Cooper, ''By Fire storm and Ice: Underwater Archeological Investigations in the Apostle Islands''. Wisconsin State Historical Society, 1991; James M. Keller, ''The Unholy Apostles: Shipwreck Tales of the Apostle Islands'', Sheridan Books, 1984; Busch, ''op cit''.

References

External links

Aerial photos of Outer Island Light, Marina.com.Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey
Survey number HABS WI-318
Lighthouse friends, Outer Island, WI article.Merket, Jim, ''Outer Island: Place of Remoteness and Beauty'', Lighthouse Digest, Oct. 1999.
*

br>Maritime History Project, Inventory of Historic Light Stations - Wisconsin, Outer Island Light.

*

,

Boatnerd The boatnerd corporation, a registered not for profit corporation, circulates information about vessels that ply the North American Great Lakes. When Acheson Ventures provided space for a headquarters for the organization in their Maritime Center o ...

{{authority control Lighthouses completed in 1874 Houses completed in 1874 Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Lighthouses in Ashland County, Wisconsin Lighthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Ashland County, Wisconsin

Access

Erosion control

Notable incidents

See also

References

Further reading

External links