St Joseph North Pier – Inner light

On July 15, 1870, Congress appropriated $3,000 for a new pierhead beacon, which was built later that year on the south pier along with an elevated walkway. An assistant keeper was assigned to the station in 1876 to help with the task of maintaining two lights. In 1881, the pierhead beacon was transferred to the outer end of the north pier, and its light was changed from fixed white to fixed red. A new open-frame tower, which was fifteen-and-a-half feet taller than the previous pierhead beacon, was built on the north pier in 1885, and upon the opening of navigation in 1886, it began displaying a fixed white light from a fourth-order lens. This light was deemed sufficient for the harbor, and the 1859 lighthouse was discontinued on March 18, 1886. On November 1, 1887, a 1,500-pound fog bell, struck by a Stevens striking apparatus, was added to the pierhead tower.

After the War Department had extended the north pier, the range lights and steam whistle were relocated 1,000 feet lakeward in 1904. The present set of range lights on the north pier was constructed in 1907. The front tower consists of steel framing covered with metal sheets and tapers from a diameter of eight feet, three inches at its base to seven feet, three inches at its nine-sided lantern room. The tower was originally equipped with a fifth-order Barbier and Benard lens that produced a fixed red light.

The rear tower consists of a twenty-four-foot-square steel structure whose pyramidal roof is surmounted by an octagonal tower and circular lantern room with helical bars. A fourth-order lens manufactured by Chance Brothers was installed in the lantern rom to produce a fixed red light. The pier’s original ten-inch steam whistle, constructed by J. P. McGuire of Cleveland, Ohio, was transferred to the lower portion of the new structure. A diaphone fog signal was installed in the rear tower in 1933.

In May 2008, the St. Joseph Pierhead and Inner Lights, deemed excess by the Coast Guard, were offered at no cost to eligible entities, including federal, state and local agencies, non-profit corporations, educational agencies, or community development organizations. The City of St. Joseph was the only entity to submit an application, and after reviewing it, the National Park Service requested more information on how the city would share stewardship of the lights with the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center and during what time the lights would be open to the public. A more complete application was returned to the National Park Service in April 2009, and a formal ceremony celebrating the transfer of the lighthouses to the city was held on October 7, 2013.

In August 2008, a historical architect assessed the inner and outer lighthouse structures, at a cost of $17,000, and concluded that $1 million in repairs would be necessary before public access to the lights could be permitted. The inner light required more attention as part of its ceiling had collapsed.

A Lighthouse Forever Fund Committee was formed in 2014 to raised $2 million in private donations to fully restore the pier range lights and catwalk. After that, maintenance will be funded by the city’s general fund tax revenues. By the end of 2014, the committee had raised $1.65 million, which allowed bids to be invited for the restoration work. Mihm Enterprises of Hamilton was selected to rehabilitate the lighthouses at a cost of just over $980,000, and the north pier was closed in June 2015 so work could get started. The restoration effort concluded in the spring of 2016, shortly after a replica of a smokestack that had been removed in 1949 was installed on the inner light. All the hard work in raising the funds and saving the lights was rewarded with a 2016 Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation.

The fourth-order Fresnel lens was removed from the inner light in 2012 and taken to the Heritage Museum Cultural Center in St. Joseph, where it was restored and placed on display along with the fifth-order lens used in the outer light that had been removed in 2005. The 1908 keepers’ duplex still stands near the end of the north pier.