The Vermilion 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 ...

on the shores of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

Vermilion, Ohio Vermilion is a city in Erie and Lorain counties in the U.S. state of Ohio, on Lake Erie. The population was 10,659 at the 2020 census. Located about 35 miles west of Cleveland and 17 miles east of Sandusky, it is part of the Cleveland metropo ...

, USA. It is situated near the mouth of the Vermilion River. Erected on 23 October 1991 and dedicated on 6 June 1992, the lighthouse is illuminated by a 200

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

with a 5th order

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 c ...

. The lighthouse's

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

-mandated light color is steady red. The current lighthouse is a 34-foot (10.4 meters) replica of the previous Vermilion Lighthouse that had been removed in 1929. Following a multi-year fundraising campaign headed by local historian Theodore Wakefield, the replica was built by the

Great Lakes Historical Society The National Museum of the Great Lakes is a museum in the Toledo Maritime Center, a heritage location on the banks of the Maumee River on the east side of Toledo, Ohio. Operated by the Great Lakes Historical Society, it celebrates the natural an ...

using $55,000 in public contributions. Designed by architect Robert Lee Tracht of

Huron, Ohio Huron is a city in Erie County, Ohio, United States. The population was 7,149 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Sandusky, Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Area. Huron Township surrounds the City of Huron. History and culture Huron Townshi ...

, groundbreaking for the lighthouse occurred on 24 July 1991.

History

The first Vermilion Lighthouse was a wooden structure that was built in 1847 by a $3,000 grant from the

Congress of the United States The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

. In 1859 the lighthouse received a $5000 renovation that rebuilt the structure and added a

whale oil Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' ("tears, tear" or "drop"). Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the ...

lamp and 6th order Fresnel lens. In 1866 Congress appropriated funds to build a new, permanent lighthouse made from

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

. Cast in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

in three tapering octagonal sections, the iron used for the lighthouse was

recycled Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

from smooth-bored Columbian

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

s that had been rendered obsolete after the

Battle of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War. Follo ...

in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. As Vermilion native Ernest Wakefield wrote, “The iron, therefore, of the 1877 Vermilion lighthouse echoed and resonated with the terrible trauma of the War Between the States.”Anderson, Kraig. Lighthouse Friends, Vermilion Lighthouse.
/ref> The

ironworkers An ironworker is a tradesman who works in the iron-working industry. Ironworkers assemble the structural framework in accordance with engineered drawings and install the metal support pieces for new buildings. They also repair and renovate o ...

used sand molds of three tapering rings,

octahedral In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...

in shape. Completed in 1877, the new lighthouse was high and had an oil

lantern A lantern is an often portable source of lighting, typically featuring a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle or a wick in oil, and often a battery-powered light in modern timesto make it easier to carry and h ...

with a 5th order Fresnel lens. In 1919 the oil lantern was replaced with an

acetylene Acetylene (systematic name: ethyne) is the chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in its pure ...

light. After it was discovered to be leaning to one side, in 1929 the lighthouse was removed and replaced with an

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

tower. The old iron lighthouse was transported back to Buffalo where it was later renovated and reinstalled as the

East Charity Shoal Light East Charity Shoal Light is an offshore lighthouse located near the Saint Lawrence River's entrance in northeastern Lake Ontario, due south of the city of Kingston, Ontario and approximately southwest of Wolfe Island. It is on the southeast rim ...

on the

Saint Lawrence Seaway The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Americ ...

in 1935.

Sources

The Inland Seas Maritime Museum
* ''The Lighthouse That Wanted to Stay Lit'' by Dr. Ernest H. Wakefield, published by Honors Press, 1 June 1992,

Notes

External links

Anderson, Kraig, Lighthouse Friends, Vermilion Lighthouse.
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090402061557/http://lighthouse.boatnerd.com/gallery/Erie/Vermilion.htm , date=2009-04-02 , Boatnerd.com.
Lighyhouses.com Vermilion Light.
Lighthouses in Ohio Buildings and structures in Erie County, Ohio Buildings and structures in Lorain County, Ohio Lighthouses completed in 1991 1991 establishments in Ohio

History

Sources

Notes

Further reading

External links