Wind Point Lighthouse is a lighthouse located at the north end of Racine

Racine, Wisconsin

Racine is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population of 82,196...

 Harbor in the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

. It is in the village of Wind Point, Wisconsin

Wind Point, Wisconsin

Wind Point is a village in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,853 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Wind Point is located at ....

, on Lighthouse Road, next to the Shoop Park golf course. The lighthouse stands 108 feet (32.9 m) tall. One of the oldest and tallest active lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

s on the Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 (Reference #84003780).

History

Wind Point Lighthouse was designed by Orlando Metcalfe Poe

Orlando Poe

Orlando Metcalfe Poe was an United States Army officer and engineer in the American Civil War. After helping General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea, he was responsible for much of the early lighthouse construction on the Great Lakes.-Early life:Poe was born in Navarre, Ohio...

 and constructed in 1880. The beacon

Beacon

A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location.Beacons can also be combined with semaphoric or other indicators to provide important information, such as the status of an airport, by the colour and rotational pattern of its airport beacon, or of...

 was originally powered by a three-wicked kerosene lamp

Kerosene lamp

The kerosene lamp is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. This article refers to kerosene lamps that have a wick and a tall glass chimney. Kerosene lanterns that have a wick and a glass globe are related to kerosene lamps and are included here as well...

, magnified by a third-order Fresnel lens

Fresnel lens

A Fresnel lens is a type of lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses.The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design...

. The light was electrified in 1924, and replaced by a DCB-24R airport beacon in 1964. The light can be seen for 19 miles (30.6 km). A signal house (horns removed, resonators still in place) remains on the grounds as well as a garage, two storage buildings, and an oil house. The Village of Wind Point has maintained the lighthouse and grounds since 1964, and uses the old keepers' quarters as a village hall and police headquarters.

In the summer of 2007, the lighthouse tower underwent a US$210,000 restoration, during which windows and doors were replaced, brickwork repointed

Repointing

Repointing is the process of renewing the pointing in masonry construction. Over time, weathering and decay cause voids in the joints between masonry units , allowing the undesirable entrance of water. Water entering through these voids can cause significant damage through frost weathering and...

, and the tower repainted.

Image gallery

Specialized further reading

• Havighurst, Walter (1943) The Long Ships Passing: The Story of the Great Lakes, Macmillan Publishers
  Macmillan Publishers
  Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
  
  .
• Oleszewski, Wes, Great Lakes Lighthouses, American and Canadian: A Comprehensive Directory/Guide to Great Lakes Lighthouses, (Gwinn, Michigan: Avery Color Studios, Inc., 1998) ISBN 0-932212-98-0.
• Sapulski, Wayne S., (2001) Lighthouses of Lake Michigan: Past and Present (Paperback) (Fowlerville: Wilderness Adventure Books) ISBN 0923568476; ISBN 978-0923568474.
• Taylor, Paul (October 2009) Orlando M. Poe: Civil War General and Great Lakes Engineer (Kent State University Press) ISBN 1606350404; ISBN 978-1606350409.
• Wright, Larry and Wright, Patricia, Great Lakes Lighthouses Encyclopedia Hardback (Erin: Boston Mills Press, 2006) ISBN 1-55046-399-3.

External links

• Friends of the Wind Point Lighthouse