Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Wawatam Lighthouse

 The Wawatam lighthouse is in Saint Ignace, Michigan, just across the Mackinac Bridge from Mackinaw City.  And its history is a little bit less auspicious than the other lighthouses we visited.

From wikipedia:  The current lighthouse was originally built in 1998 as an architectural folly at the Monroe Welcome Center on Interstate 75 in the southeastern corner of the state near the Ohio border. It was a functional lighthouse structure that was constructed far away from navigational waters as an element of the tourist heritage of the state. In 2004, the Welcome Center was renovated, and the lighthouse determined to be obsolete.  St. Ignace civic leaders applied to be the location of the small tower, and the lighthouse was trucked more than 330 miles to East Moran Bay in St. Ignace.  

After reassembly, the Wawatam Lighthouse was relit on August 20, 2006. The lighthouse is now an official United States Coast Guard privately maintained aid to navigation.

The tower is 52 feet tall, but rated it as 62 feet tall from the water.


Here's a snip from Google Earth, showing where the lighthouse and the passage light are  (not my photo!):





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