The Vermilion Lighthouse is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

on the shores of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

Vermilion, Ohio Vermilion is a city in Erie County, Ohio, Erie and Lorain County, Ohio, Lorain counties in the U.S. state of Ohio, on Lake Erie. Its population was 10,659 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located about 35 miles west of Cleveland an ...

, USA. It is situated near the mouth of the Vermilion River. Erected on 23 October 1991 and dedicated on 6 June 1992, the lighthouse is illuminated by a 200

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, also known as an incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe, is an electric light that produces illumination by Joule heating a #Filament, filament until it incandescence, glows. The filament is enclosed in a ...

with a 5th order

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens (optics), lens which reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. The simpler Dioptrics, d ...

. The lighthouse's

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

-mandated light color is steady red. The current lighthouse is a 34-foot (10.4 meters) replica of the previous Vermilion Lighthouse that had been removed in 1929. Following a multi-year fundraising campaign headed by local historian Theodore Wakefield, the replica was built by the

Great Lakes Historical Society The National Museum of the Great Lakes is a museum in the Toledo Maritime Center, a heritage location on the banks of the Maumee River on the east side of Toledo, Ohio. Operated by the Great Lakes Historical Society, it celebrates the natural and ...

using $55,000 in public contributions. Designed by architect Robert Lee Tracht of

Huron, Ohio Huron is a city in Erie County, Ohio, United States, located at the mouth of the Huron River on Lake Erie. The population was 6,922 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Sandusky micropolitan area. History Huron Township was at the center of ...

, groundbreaking for the lighthouse occurred on 24 July 1991.

History

The first Vermilion Lighthouse was a wooden structure that was built in 1847 by a $3,000 grant from the

Congress of the United States The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both ...

. In 1859 the lighthouse received a $5000 renovation that rebuilt the structure and added a

whale oil Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train-oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' ("tear drop"). Sperm oil, a special kind of oil used in the cavities of sperm whales, ...

lamp and 6th order Fresnel lens. In 1866 Congress appropriated funds to build a new, permanent lighthouse made from

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

. Cast in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

in three tapering octagonal sections, the iron used for the lighthouse was

recycled Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

from smooth-bored Columbian

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s that had been rendered obsolete after the

Battle of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter (also the Attack on Fort Sumter or the Fall of Fort Sumter) (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender of the ...

in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. As Vermilion native Ernest Wakefield wrote, “The iron, therefore, of the 1877 Vermilion lighthouse echoed and resonated with the terrible trauma of the War Between the States.”Anderson, Kraig. Lighthouse Friends, Vermilion Lighthouse.
/ref> The

ironworkers An ironworker is a tradesman who works in the iron-working industry. Ironworkers assemble the structural framework in accordance with engineering drawings, engineered drawings and install the metal support pieces for new buildings. They also ...

used sand molds of three tapering rings,

octahedral In geometry, an octahedron (: octahedra or octahedrons) is any polyhedron with eight faces. One special case is the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex. Many types of i ...

in shape. Completed in 1877, the new lighthouse was high and had an oil

lantern A lantern is a source of lighting, often portable. It typically features a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle, a oil lamp, wick in oil, or a thermoluminescence, thermoluminescent Gas mantle, mesh, and often a ...

with a 5th order Fresnel lens. In 1919 the oil lantern was replaced with an

acetylene Acetylene (Chemical nomenclature, systematic name: ethyne) is a chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is u ...

light. After it was discovered to be leaning to one side, in 1929 the lighthouse was removed and replaced with an

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

tower. The old iron lighthouse was transported back to Buffalo where it was later renovated and reinstalled as the East Charity Shoal Light on the

Saint Lawrence Seaway The St. Lawrence Seaway () is a system of rivers, locks, canals and channels in Eastern Canada and Northern United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North America, as far inland ...

in 1935.

Sources

The Inland Seas Maritime Museum
* ''The Lighthouse That Wanted to Stay Lit'' by Dr. Ernest H. Wakefield, published by Honors Press, 1 June 1992,

Notes

External links

Anderson, Kraig, Lighthouse Friends, Vermilion Lighthouse.
, Boatnerd.com.
Lighyhouses.com Vermilion Light.
{{Authority control Lighthouses in Ohio Buildings and structures in Erie County, Ohio Buildings and structures in Lorain County, Ohio Lighthouses completed in 1991 1991 establishments in Ohio

History

Sources

Notes

Further reading

External links