South Bass Island Light

South Bass Iceland Light is a lighthouse at the southern end of the same island in Lake Erie. He was inducted into the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 1990 and it is believed that it is the only lighthouse in the United States, which is owned by a University, the Ohio State University.

History

An increase in the number of travelers end of the 19th century prompted the competent authority in 1893, to authorize the construction of a lighthouse on the island. The light signal was used to mark the passage between Sandusky and Toledo, together with other beacons in the environment. As the site was chosen Parker Point on the southwestern end of the island, and in 1895 a 8000 m² plot of land was purchased. The construction of the lighthouse was delayed because the original contractor had difficulties in construction. Thus, the beacon was taken into operation in 1897. The construction is an untypical for the time of the building structure, a two and a half storey brick building in the Queen Anne style, with a three-story tower at one corner. This was equipped with a Fresnel lens, the light was originally fired by oil, but which was later converted to electricity.

The service time of the first lighthouse keeper Harry Riley and his assistant Sam Anderson was short. In August 1898, the outbreak of smallpox on the island was found, which disease cases easily and no deaths were recorded. Nevertheless, a newspaper reported on September 1 that only a month before hired Anderson started drinking out of fear of the disease and to hide in the basement of the lighthouse, where he held a number of snakes. He left the tower and eventually plunged into the lake with the cry " God save them all. " His body was found the next day. On the same day the report was published, Riley was picked up by the police in Sandusky, apparently gone mad. He was admitted to the state mental hospital and died the following March. Died in 1925 the lighthouse keeper Charles B. Duggan tragically in a fall from a cliff on the west side of the island.

In 1962, the beacon was turned off and replaced by a steel tower, which was built next to the old building. The old look was transferred to the Lake Erie Iceland Historical Museum, where it is available for inspection today. Five years later, the facility has been completely decommissioned. The Ohio State University, which operates the Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Iceland at the nearby Put-in- Bay, saw the opportunity to expand this facility, and acted a running thirty years Land transfer document dating. When that expired in 1997, the University took over the original lighthouse finally in her Eigentum.Durch NOAA was commissioned in 1983 at the Lighthouse, an automatic weather station in operation. The lighthouse is the accommodation of scientists and staff of the University and is also open for tours in the summer of 2007. The building, whose exterior is largely unchanged, in 1990 the National Register of Historic Places added.