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This past spring Michigan’s Big Sable Point Lighthouse hosted a workshop to train personnel in the skills which could be used to assist in historic masonry needs of the lighthouse now and in the years to come. As part of this training process, they actually worked on the restoration of a section of wall of the 1867 keeper’s house, which now houses the gift shop, education room and an inside entrance to the tower.
Just getting this process started was no easy task. After scouring the country for a year, the folks at the Sable Points Lighthouse Keepers Association (SPLKA), the group that manages the lighthouse and three others, finally located the appropriate historic match for their brick needs at Colonial Brick Company in Chicago, Illinois, a firm that specializes in vintage bricks.
SPLKA has many preservation projects on the table for their lighthouses, which, as well as Big Sable Point, include White River Lighthouse, Little Sable Point, and Ludington North Breakwater Lighthouses. This autumn the wood windows in Big Sable Point will be replaced in the keeper’s house and a fall workshop is planned to train volunteers in this procedure.
Big Sable Point Lighthouse is located near Ludington, Michigan and is open to visitors from April through October. The lighthouse and keeper’s house are staffed by approximately 125 volunteers throughout the season. To learn more you can visit their web site at www.SPLKA.org.
Big Sable Point Lighthouse is also the featured lighthouse at the 2013 Annual Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival to be held in Alpena, Michigan on October 10-13. The Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival features over 100 vendors and lighthouse groups with exhibits, tours of the areas lighthouses, live music, seminars, banquets, and more. The Festival is highly attended by people from all over the United States and other nations.
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