Seul Choix Point cast iron light post: Shown below is a picture of one of two 24' cast iron light posts bearing the USLHE markings. These are fairly rare and not often found intact. Only 9 or 10 are believed to still exist. The USLHE stands for United States Lighthouse Establishment which was the original name of the lighthouse service from 1789 to 1910 when the name was changed to United States Lighthouse Service (USLHS). Unique to the St. Mary’s River, they were used as channel marker lights. There were 12 original poles mounted on small concrete cribs. The poles were painted red or green depending on their location in relation to the channel. Kerosene was the original source of illumination and small tank houses that held the fuel were mounted on the cribs with the light poles. The fuel was changed to acetylene around 1913 and the lights were converted to electric power by 1921. These light posts were eventually replaced by the familiar lightweight skeleton towers and floating lighted buoys.





Naubinway Island Light, MI: Photo taken from Naubinway Marina. Located about 0.8 miles south of Millecoquins Point on the north shore of Lake Michigan. This small island is surrounded by rocks and shoals. An area of less than 1' depth lies just 0.6 miiles east of the island and a detached 14' shoal sits approximately 0.8 miles to the SW.

The original 1931 unmanned aid was a white steel skeleton tower on a concrete base with a 32' focal plane which is typical of such minor aids constructed at that time. The skeleton tower was removed between 1977 and 1997, replaced by the existing white sylindrical tower of typical D9 design. It currently exhibits a 200 mm Tidelands Signal acrylic optic powered by a 12-volt DC photovoltaic array.




Moves to Part VII. . . .