Grand Marais Harbor of Refuge Inner and Outer Lights
Outer range light
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| Location | West pier at entry to Grand Marais Harbor of Refuge, Grand Marais, Michigan |
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| Coordinates | 46°41′2″N 85°58′20″W / 46.68389°N 85.97222°WCoordinates: 46°41′2″N 85°58′20″W / 46.68389°N 85.97222°W |
| Year first constructed | 1895 |
| Year first lit | 1895 |
| Foundation | concrete pier |
| Construction | steel (outer) and cast iron (inner) |
| Tower shape | skeletal |
| Height | 55 feet (17 m) (inner) and 34 feet (10 m) (outer) |
| Focal height | 53 feet (16 m) (inner), 40 feet (12 m) (outer) |
| Original lens | Fifth order Fresnel lens(inner) |
| Current lens | Fifth order Fresnel lens(inner), modern acrylic lens (outer) |
| Range | 14 nautical miles; 26 kilometres (16 mi) (inner),7.8 nautical miles; 14 kilometres (9 mi) (outer) |
| Characteristic | F W (inner), FI W 2.5s (outer) |
| ARLHS number | USA-1079, USA-1080 |
| USCG number |
7-14560 (inner), 7-14550 (outer) |
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Grand Marais Harbor of Refuge Inner and Outer Lights
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| Area | less than one acre |
| MPS | Light Stations of the United States MPS |
| NRHP Reference # | 12000254 |
| Added to NRHP | May 2, 2012 |
7-14560 (inner), 7-14550 (outer)
The Grand Marais Harbor of Refuge Inner and Outer Lights are a pair of lighthouses located on the west pier at the entry to Grand Marais Harbor of Refuge, in Grand Marais, Michigan. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
In the 1870s, shipping traffic through Lake Superior increased tremendously. Realizing the lack of a safe harbor between Whitefish Bay and Grand Island, the Army Corps of Engineers began upgrading the harbor at Grand Marais in 1881. Over the next ten years, the Corps dredged the harbor and constructed a 5,770 feet (1,760 m) timber pile breakwater stretching across the harbor. A shipping channel was dredged into the harbor, and two timber crib piers 700 feet (210 m) long were built to each side of the channel. These piers were extended one section at a time.
As the work on the harbor neared completion, the Lighthouse Board decided that navigation into the harbor would be improved by the addition or a light and fog signal on the head of the western pier. They requested funding for a light in 1892, and Congress allocated funds in 1895. The Board quickly drew up plans and awarded contracts to build a prefabricated light, and the new tower light was in place by November 1895. A fog signal originally located at the Point Iroquois Light was transferred to Grand Marais, and no keeper's quarters were built, causing the project to be significantly under budget (although the keeper was reduced to living in a "temporary" shanty).
Realizing that the addition of a rear range light would improve navigation, the Lighthouse Board requested that the unused funds be re-appropriated toward constructing a second light. Congress agreed in 1897, and by 1898 the second light was fabricated and installed at the inner end of the pier.
In 1905, the west pier was extended 612 feet (187 m), and the following year the front range light was moved to the new pierhead. In 1908, a keeper's quarters was finally constructed. As larger vessels began traveling in the Great Lakes, the Grand Marais harbor decreased in importance, and in the 1940s the Corps of Engineers stopped maintaining the breakwater. It quickly rotted away, allowing sand to fill the harbor.
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