Spectacle Reef Light
U.S. Coast Guard Archive
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| Location | Cheboygan County, Michigan, Lake Huron |
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| Coordinates | 45°46′24″N 84°8′12″W / 45.77333°N 84.13667°WCoordinates: 45°46′24″N 84°8′12″W / 45.77333°N 84.13667°W |
| Year first constructed | 1874 |
| Year first lit | 1874 |
| Automated | 1972 |
| Foundation | cofferdam/timber exposed Crib pier |
| Construction | Monolithic limestone/iron bolts |
| Tower shape | Frustum of a cone on a rectangular house |
| Markings / pattern | natural with red roofs |
| Height | 80 feet (24 m) |
| Focal height | 86 feet (26 m) |
| Original lens | Second-order Fresnel lens |
| Current lens | Solar powered 300 mm Tideland Signal acrylic lens |
| Intensity | 400,000 candlepower white; 80,000 candlepower red |
| Range | 11 nautical miles (20 km; 13 mi) |
| Characteristic |
Flashing alternately white every 60 seconds, red every 5 seconds. Operates year round. 100 candlepower white winter light which flashes every 5 seconds |
| Fog signal | HORN: air–diaphone |
| ARLHS number | USA-782. |
| USCG number |
7-11730 |
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Spectacle Reef Light Station
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| Nearest city | Benton Township, Michigan |
| Area | 0.9 acres (0.36 ha) |
| Built | 1874 |
| Architect | US Lighthouse Board: Colonel Orlando Metcalfe Poe, and Major Godfrey Weitzel |
| MPS | U.S. Coast Guard Lighthouses and Light Stations on the Great Lakes TR |
| NRHP Reference # | 05000744 |
| Added to NRHP | July 27, 2005 |
Flashing alternately white every 60 seconds, red every 5 seconds.
7-11730
Spectacle Reef Light is a lighthouse 11 miles (18 km) east of the Straits of Mackinac and is located at the northern end of Lake Huron, Michigan. It was designed and built by Colonel Orlando Metcalfe Poe and Major Godfrey Weitzel, and was the most expensive lighthouse ever built on the Great Lakes.
Because of the challenges of building on a shoal, including laying an underwater crib, it is said to be the "most spectacular engineering achievement" in lighthouse construction on Lake Huron. It took four years to build because weather limited work to mostly the summer season. Workers lived in a structure at the site; one of the limiting conditions. It ranks high as an engineering achievement among all the lighthouses built on the Great lakes.
From 1852 to the beginning of the 20th century, the United States Lighthouse Board was active in building lighthouses to support ship traffic on the Great Lakes. Between 1852 and 1860, it built 26 new lights. Even as the United States Civil War and its aftermath slowed construction, it completed a dozen new lights in that decade. In the 1870s alone, it built 43 new lights on the Lakes. During the 1880s, more than 100 lights were constructed.
As the new century began, the Lighthouse Board operated 334 major lights, 67 fog horns and 563 buoys on the Great Lakes.
During the 19th century, design of Great Lakes lights slowly evolved. Until 1870 the most common design was to build a keeper's dwelling with the light on the dwelling's roof or on a relatively small square tower attached to the house. In the 1870s, so as to raise lights to a higher focal plane, conical brick towers, usually between 80 and 100 feet tall, were constructed. In the 1890s steel-lined towers began to replace the older generation of brick buildings.See Big Sable Point Light for a striking transition and transformation.
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