Abandoned Lighthouse on Lake Erie

Green Island Lighthouse, Green Island Ohio

Date added: May 06, 2023 Categories: Ohio Lighthouse

Light Station historic photo looking east (1939)

The Green Island Light was erected in 1864-65 to guide vessels safely through the South Passage around the Lake Erie Islands. It succeeded an earlier lighthouse completed In 1855 and destroyed by fire on New Year's Eve, 1863, the occasion of a dramatic rescue of the keeper and his family that has become part of Island lore. The Green Island Light was rebuilt on a "new and more suitable site," and a light was exhibited from the new structure for the first time on July 1, 1865. The Green Island Light operated continuously until 1939 (the residence was abandoned in 1926), when it was superseded by an automated light on a steel skeleton tower erected southwest of the old lighthouse. Today the property consists of the ruins of a stone light tower and attached keeper's dwelling, the ruins of a stone privy, and a concrete walk connecting these buildings and other structures no longer extant, to the east end of the Island, formerly the site of the lightkeeper's boathouse and wharf. Although shrouded by the thick growth that has overtaken it since it was abandoned, the Green Island Light remains remarkably intact and conveys the feeling and association of a remote nineteenth-century light station. The small, uninhabited island is now a wildlife preserve.

Site Description

The Green Island Light is located at the west end of Green Island, a small (15.80 acres) rocky island one mile west of South Bass Island in the western part of Lake Erie. The light station, abandoned since 1939, consists of the ruins of a stone light tower and attached two-story keeper's dwelling, the ruins of a stone privy, and a concrete walk connecting these buildings (and other structures no longer extant) with a former landing wharf at the east end of the island. In addition, other structures known to have existed as part of the light station, but no longer extant, offer the potential to yield important historical information about the function of the light station and the everyday lives of the keeper and his family. A white steel skeleton tower stands about 200 feet southwest of the historic light tower.

Founded on bedrock, the Green Island Light consists of a gray limestone light tower and attached two-story keeper's dwelling. Both are of random ashlar construction, with quoins and plain stone sills and lintels. The tower, which rises in front of the attached dwelling, is 9 feet square and 49 feet, 3 inches high (measured from the base to the ventilator ball of the lantern), with a focal plane height of 60 feet. Inside the tower, an iron circular stairway (now disassembled and scattered about the site) with two landings led to an iron trap door to the lantern. The 10-sided iron and brass lantern, 6 feet, 11.25 inches in diameter, features vertical bars; the lantern was glazed to a height of 36.5 inches, but the glass is now gone. The lantern was designed to display a 4th-order Fresnel lens. It was fitted with a new bull's-eye lens and new clockwork machinery (to rotate the lens) in 1906; neither is extant. Atop the lantern roof, of iron lined with zinc, is an iron ventilator ball; a copper lightning-conductor spindle, formerly grounded by copper cable to the ground, is now gone. Brackets support a cast-iron gallery 12 feet square, with a cast-iron balustrade. The entrance to the tower (which also serves as the central entrance to the attached dwelling) features a large, square transom, formerly with four lights; "1864," the date of construction, is carved in stone above the transom. Above this are two other windows, formerly with eight lights and two lights, respectively. The attached dwelling, 32 feet x 30 feet, contained six rooms and a cellar, with a one-story kitchen wing (13 feet x 21 feet) at the rear. A summer kitchen of wood frame construction was added later; it is no longer extant, although its foundation remains intact. The dwelling has a single inside end chimney at the rear of the main block. Interior partitions, which were of wood, and the gable roof appear to have been destroyed by fire. Principal windows were double-hung with 6/6 lights, but none remain.

Northeast of the combined tower and dwelling are the ruins of a stone privy, the only outbuilding that survives. It is a small, rectangular building of gray limestone construction similar to the light tower. It features quoins, a central doorway with stone sill, and a small, square window with plain lug sill in the west elevation. The door is missing, and the gable roof has collapsed. A ventilator stack that rose from the rear of the roof is gone.

A network of concrete walks, about three feet wide, connects the rear of the dwelling to the privy and to other outbuildings no longer extant, and bisects the island for a distance of some 1,100 feet, leading to a former boathouse and wharf (no longer extant) at the east end of the island. The concrete walks, installed sometime after 1909, replaced plank walks constructed in 1897.

Structures erected as part of the Green Island Light Station, but no longer extant, include: the first light tower and dwelling, completed in 1855 and destroyed by fire on January 1, 1864 (the present stone tower occupies a different, "more suitable" site); a "stone cistern of large capacity" (ca. 1879); a "well and storm-house combined," erected at the rear entrance to the summer kitchen (1886); a boathouse (35 feet x 18 feet), boat-ways (78 feet long), protection crib, and landing wharf (1889; wharf enlarged in 1894); 1,200 feet of plank walk, 2 feet wide, leading from the dwelling to the boathouse and wharf, and 100 feet of stone fence (1897); a square iron oil house lined with brick, with a concrete foundation, "located about 50 ft. westerly from base of tower" (1901); a wooden gambrel-roof barn (1908); paint house (date unknown); and a brick and cement cistern, 20 bbls. capacity. In 1909, there was also a small fenced garden, 60 feet x 40 feet in size.