Quilt Work of the Chambers Island Lighthouse is a photograph by Carol Toepke which was uploaded on July 17th, 2013.
Quilt Work of the Chambers Island Lighthouse
Chambers Island Lighthous . Chambers Island, the largest island in Green Bay. It lies 7.5 miles northwest of Fish Creek and 11.5 miles northeast of... more
by Carol Toepke
Title
Quilt Work of the Chambers Island Lighthouse
Artist
Carol Toepke
Medium
Photograph - Digital Image
Description
Chambers Island Lighthous . Chambers Island, the largest island in Green Bay. It lies 7.5 miles northwest of Fish Creek and 11.5 miles northeast of Marinette. It received its name in 1816 when Colonel John Miller sailed by on his way to construct Fort Howard at the mouth of the Fox River and named the island for his second-in-command, Colonel John Chambers. Chambers Island Lighthouse was built the same year as nearby Eagle Bluff Lighthouse, and both structures consist of a one-and-a-half-story dwelling and an attached kitchen built of cream-colored Milwaukee brick. The only major difference between the two lighthouses is that a square tower was used at Eagle Bluff, while on Chambers Island, the first two stories of the tower are square with buttressed corners and the upper portion is octagonal. The dwelling originally had five rooms, a pantry, and a closet on the first floor, and two rooms and a closet on the second floor. The fifty-five-step cast-iron stairway in the tower is the only means of accessing the second floor. A decagonal lantern was placed atop the tower to house a revolving fourth-order Fresnel that produced a white flash every sixty seconds. The tower measured forty-four feet nine inches from its base to the center of the ventilator ball atop the lantern room, and the light had a focal plane of sixty-eight feet. In addition to the lighthouse, the station was originally equipped with a wooden boathouse and outhouse. The lantern room was removed from the tower in 1958, and the Fresnel lens was purportedly sold at a surplus property auction to Harold Warp of Chicago. A short skeletal tower supporting an automated beacon was then installed atop the tower. This served as the light until the Coast Guard erected a tall, ninety-seven-foot-tall skeletal tower near the oil house in 1961. All of the light station property on Chambers Island, save a small parcel on which the skeletal tower stood, was deeded to the Town of Gibraltar for park purposes on March 10, 1976. The park opened the following year, and for over thirty-five years Joel and Mary Blahnik served as caretakers, living in the lighthouse during the summer. Personally I was a little disappointed in the state of the interior of the lighthouse. It lacked in period pieces that would have added to the tour greatly.
Uploaded
July 17th, 2013
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