Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station

Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station
Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station
Location Racine, Wisconsin
Coordinates 42°44′03″N 87°46′43″W / 42.73405°N 87.7787°W / 42.73405; -87.7787Coordinates: 42°44′03″N 87°46′43″W / 42.73405°N 87.7787°W / 42.73405; -87.7787
NRHP reference # 75000077
Added to NRHP September 9, 1975

The Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station is a complex of navigation aids begun by the U.S. government in the 1860s near the harbor of Racine, Wisconsin. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[1][2]

To guide ships into Racine's harbor, the federal government in 1837 built the first lighthouse at the mouth of the Root River, with a light on a 34-foot tower and a lightkeeper's house. Those structures no longer exist.[3]

In the early 1860s the pier was extended, and a new lighthouse and keeper's quarters were begun on a rock-filled crib 200 feet offshore. They were completed in 1866 and served for forty years. In 1903 the light was moved from the old lighthouse to a free-standing 120-foot steel tower, and the tower of the old lighthouse was capped with a hip roof.[4][2]

The life-saving station was added in 1903, a 2-story building with a 3-story square, pyramidal-roofed lookout tower. Part of the station was a frame boathouse. A team from the Life-Saving Service lived in this station, and conducted search and rescue operations along the Milwaukee-Kenosha coast and 40 miles out into Lake Michigan.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Racine Harbor Light". National Park Service. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  2. 1 2 3 Allan Heninger (1975-05-02). "NRHP Inventory/Nomination: Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station". National Park Service. Retrieved 2018-07-24. With one photo.
  3. ↑ Pepper, Terry. "Root River Lights". Seeing the Light. Terry Pepper. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  4. ↑ "Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station". Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 2018-07-24.


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