Environment

Shining lights on Great Lakes history

By |

By JOSH BENDER
Capital News Service
LANSING — Three Lake Superior lighthouses, including one in the Upper Peninsula, were recently added to the National Register for Historic Places. The Presque Isle Harbor Breakwater Light was built in 1941 to assist in shipping out iron ore mined in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, according to U.S .Coast Guard historian Daniel Koski-Karell, who applied to get the lighthouses added to the register. Standing in Presque Isle Harbor, the light is still used for this purpose today. The harbor is the ninth-busiest in the Great Lakes, according to the National Register application. In addition to shipping out iron ore, the harbor receives freighters bearing coal to fuel the Presque Isle Power Plant.

Government

Dig discoveries shine light on lighthouses

By |

By LAUREN GIBBONS
Capital News Service
LANSING — The grounds surrounding Michigan’s oldest surviving lighthouse could see an archaeological excavation as experts work to learn more about the past while preserving it. The Fort Gratiot Light Station in Port Huron was built in the 1820s and was transferred to St. Clair County from the U.S. Coast Guard as a historic site in 2010. It was built just north of the site that formerly held Fort Gratiot, a post built in 1814 and occupied by soldiers intermittently until 1879. Now the local recreation department is searching for appropriate spots to dig for artifacts.