Vermilion Lighthouse@harbor view park — Attraction in Vermilion

Vermilion Lighthouse GPS: 41.424858,-82.366318 History from “Michigan and Great Lakes Lighthouses”, FB group Vermillion Ohio was inhabited by the Erie Indians as early as 1656. By the mid 1800’s the population grew enough to warrant lights be installed in the harbor. In 1847 funds were made available for a beacon light to be located on the end of a pier. Prior to then oil burning beacons on wooden stakes marked the harbor entrance. By 1852, the pier was in need of repair, at a cost of about $3,000. In 1858 a report described the light “as a gallows frame standing on a completely wrecked pier.” In 1859, the beacon light and pier were rebuilt. In 1877 the old wooden tower was decayed and in danger of falling down so a new iron tower had been ordered. To make the lighthouse, ironworkers used sand molds of three tapering rings, with an octagonal cross-section. The iron they used was from unpurchased Columbia smoothbore cannons, obsolete after the Battle of Fort Sumter. The new tower was 34 feet high and stood at the end of the pier with a 400-foot-long catwalk connecting it to shore. The characteristic of the light was changed in 1880 from fixed white to fixed red. In 1929 the lighthouse was leaning toward the river after the lighthouse pier was undermined in an icy storm. Within a week, the lighthouse was dismantled and a 10 foot steel tower was erected to mark the pier. Commodore Wakefield offered to purchase the old lighthouse and move it to his property, Harbor View, but his request was denied. Instead. In 1934, a pair of range lights was built using the skeletal tower as the front light and a steel pole, 880 feet back for the rear light. Ted Wakefield put his efforts into encouraging downtown Vermilion to maintain its 19th century appearance. His childhood home, built in 1909 was sold to the Great Lakes Historical Society, who opened it as the Inland Seas Maritime Museum. A replica of the 1877 lighthouse to complement the museum was built in 1991 and was 16 feet tall. The 25,000-pound base of the replica lighthouse was brought to Vermilion on a flatbed truck, and cranes were used to place it onto the foundation. The tower was assembled in less than 3 hours and the next day the lantern room was put in place and a fifth-order Fresnel lens owned by the museum was installed. The replica lighthouse was dedicated on June 6, 1992 and designated a Coast-Guard-sanctioned private navigational aid. Long a mystery as to what happened to the 1877 lighthouse the following article was found explain what happened. “Once the lighthouse had been dismantled in 1929, it was transported to Buffalo, New York, where it was renovated. Six years later, in 1935, the lighthouse was given a new home and a new charge — on Lake Ontario. Sitting on a cement crib off Cape Vincent at the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River, Vermilion Lighthouse was fitted with a fifth-order Fresnel lens and renamed East Charity Shoal Lighthouse.” The Inland Seas Maritime Museum closed in September 2011. The lighthouse was deeded to the city in 2014. The former museum and adjacent land were purchased by the city. T USCG still listed the replica lighthouse as “Museum Lighthouse,” even though it was inactive for 10 years. In 2014, Main Street Vermilion raised money to have a replica fifth-order Fresnel lens fabricated for the lighthouse. A re-lighting ceremony was held at the lighthouse on...

"This is a good lighthouse," my instincts told me on the crisp fall daybreak. Come to find Qwerty agreed with me - not merely the sassy keyboard equivalent of Clippy but a quippier version of Geico's gregarious gecko Gordon given to roaming the greater Chicago area and declaring bustling bars, restaurants, tram stops, laboratories, and gas stations "nice."

But as Qwerty asserted, the Vermilion Lighthouse is so very much more than nice. I refrain from calling it good to preserve my journalistic integrity, but I can enumerate its assets through the testimony of the locals:

It looks like a lighthouse. Great for photos. Sorry, I don't need any free coupons. Pretty cool. Got good gams. Did you see where my mom went? Yeah, good addition to the beach. Please, mister, my mom said to ask the man with the mustache next to the fire hydrant if I can't find her and I can't find him and I can't find the fire hydrant.

Thankfully, my faithful companion Constable returned just in time to return the wailing child to their mámá. He turned to me in my relief, the melancholy in his eyes expressing more than disappointment that with the sun had also set our hopes of getting pizza delivered to the beach.

"Rilan, this isn't working."

"How many peaches do you think I could get for this apricot?"

"Rilan -"

"It should be worth more because it's dried, right?"

"Rilan, I love you but I can't be the one cleaning up after all your messes."

"Or does that mean it's worth less?"

"And towing the rowboat in every night."

"No, it should be worth even more because it takes so much time to dehydrate it."

"And morning."

"But there is less of it."

"And for your afternoon naps."

"But it's more convenient to eat."

"Rilan, peaches are not apricots."

At this confession, I was stunned. Constable and I sat wordless as the sun set, watching its rays stretch past the peak of the lighthouse and sending our commentary out to the world untethered. Mine, the murmurings of an adult being chastised by their inner child. Constable's, a series of sonnets of which I only caught snippets and have recorded them here:

Ev'rything is buzzing like it's about To erupt if someone even grazed it With a glance or fit it with a shoe but Ev'rything is nothing without a bit Of full force fight designed to bite back at The heels of the thing it chased out of home And how's that going for it yet? Nothing More than rocks cooled from lava burnt from loam Stolen away to check behind its back And steal for everything precious slack.

Notes: An apology from my last review - my therapist was in fact not a vampire, but the lead drummer of Vampire Weekend, Chris Baio. I had stormed off in the middle of his admission to spare myself the deep hurt of knowing the truth, but I had no idea its full extent. Baio reached out* to confirm this but it did little to quell my original...

Vermilion lighthouse is located on the shore of Lake Erie at the Main Street beach. It has a history that dates from the early 1800s. A plaque outside the lighthouse explains some of the history of the lighthouses that over the years have been in Vermilion. The current Lighthouse is relatively new and the story of how it came to be, as well as the history can be found on a nearby display.

On another display, there is a short description of how a lighthouse operates with a fresnel lens and some of the information around the lens that exists today in the Vermilion lighthouse.

There is a beautiful small park area associated with the lighthouse with pleasant benches for sitting and looking out over Lake Erie. Main Street beach right adjacent to the lighthouse is a small sandy beach area that's clean and well maintained by the community of Vermilion. It was a pleasant place to spend some time relaxing and enjoying the view.

There is limited free parking in a small lot at the end of the street in front...