Cheboygan Crib Lighthouse - Cheboygan, MI - Relocated Structures on Waymarking.com

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, there was a marked increase in commercial traffic in and out of the Cheboygan River as there was on the Great Lakes in general. Lumber accounted for the lion’s share of cargo out of Cheboygan. To allow larger vessels to pass, a channel was dredged to about ¼ mile out into Lake Huron. A small wooden crib was built marking the spot where the dredged area began. Eventually, in 1884, a small lighthouse was built on the wooden crib. Fitted with a fourth order Fresnel lens, it helped mariners by marking the spot where they needed to turn into the channel.

Shortly after the turn of the century, the wooden crib gave way to a concrete one. A foghorn was added in 1911, and the light itself was automated in 1929. By 1980, however, the crib had started to tilt to one side. Rather than risk the entire structure falling over into the lake, the Coast Guard decided to dismantle the tower, dynamite the crib and replace the whole thing with a buoy.

This was not good news for the city of Cheboygan who had allowed the lighthouse to become a kind of city mascot. Its image appeared on everything from the masthead of the city newspaper to official stationery. After an appeal to the Coast Guard, the lighthouse tower was saved by transporting it to a small park at the mouth of the Cheboygan River. A large steel bar was inserted through the windows in the upper story of the tower. It acted like a yoke allowing the entire lighthouse to be picked up by a crane on a barge and moved in one piece.

Original Location: N 45° 39.691 W 084° 27.646 How it was moved: Other Type of move: Inside City Building Status: Public Related Website: [Web Link]

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