Lighthouses

For some reason, I've been thinking about lighthouses today. I guess there's no telling what will trigger a memory. When my dad was alive, I'd visit him in Erie, and he'd take me for a drive that always rolled past two of the three lighthouses in town. When he got too old to drive, I'd take him on that same ride: down to the South Pier where even on the stormiest of days you can look out across the Channel towards Presque Isle's North Pier light, a black and white beacon set at the end of a long concrete pier that stretches out in to Lake Erie.






The lighthouse was built in the 1858 to guide ships into the Erie Harbor. In 1995, its Fresnel lens was removed and replaced with a flashing red light, but it continues to guide ships through the channel. I've walked the South Pier countless times, looking across the channel at its sister pier jutting north into the open lake with that distinctive black and white light at the end. Sometimes my dad would walk out with me, sometimes he'd wait on a bench and tell me to walk out. He knew how much I loved the lake.

Those drives with my dad would always head east toward his favorite Erie lighthouse, the Land Lighthouse. We'd head down to the foot of Lighthouse Lane, to a spot at the top of a bluff overlooking the harbor's eastern entrance. Honestly, its the strangest thing. Down at the end of this working class street is a lighthouse, far, far above the lake. Truly, its just plunked down at the end of a city street. And it's not just any lighthouse--not originally, at least. The first American lighthouse on the Great Lakes was built on this spot in 1818. It was replaced in 1858 with a structure that lasted only to 1866. It turns out that the spot they'd chosen was on a layer of quicksand. Third time is the charm, apparently, because the third Land Lighthouse, built in 1867 still stands today.





While I don't remember visiting the third Erie lighthouse very often with my dad, I did spend a lot of time there as a kid. Presque Isle Lighthouse is on the beach, smack dab in the middle of the state park. It was built in 1873 out of good strong bricks that could withstand the fierce gales blowing off of Lake Erie. I'm afraid my only digital shot of it is a drive by photo taken last winter. You can get a much better view of it from the lake side, so I've included a shot, courtesy of Penn State University.





I used to dream of living in this lighthouse. That still sounds completely appealing today. Lighthouses suggest safety to me, and in my hometown past, at least, that's all wrapped up in the most wonderful memories of my dad.


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