Long Tail Point Light

Lighthouse

44°35′45″N 87°59′01″W / 44.5959°N 87.9835°W / 44.5959; -87.9835^[1]TowerConstructionFieldstone (first tower)
Wood frame (second and third)Automated1936^[2]ShapeConical tower (first)
Square house with lantern on roof (second and third)LightFirst lit1848 (first)
1859 (second)
1899 (third)^[2]Deactivated1973^[2]

The Long Tail Point Light, also known as the Tail Point Light, was a lighthouse in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Long abandoned but still standing, it was succeeded by two further structures, both since destroyed.

History

Long Tail Point is a sand bar lying at the southern end of the bay; as it lies adjacent to the channel into the city of Green Bay, a lighthouse was constructed in 1848. The structure was built from fieldstone collected at Bay Settlement on the opposite shore,^[3] and was originally lit with an array of oil lamps.^[2] These lamps were replaced with a Fresnel lens in the 1850s,^[2] but soon the light was surrounded by water, and it was abandoned in 1859 in favor of a new house a short distance to the north.^[2] The new lighthouse was an integral frame dwelling with the old lantern placed on its roof; it employed a fourth order Fresnel lens.^[3] In 1899 the light's distance from the newly dredged channel prompted the construction of a third light, this time on a concrete pier resting on a wooden crib offshore;^[2] the fog bell was moved to the Sand Point Light in Michigan.^[4] This new crib house was much smaller than the second house, and the keepers continued to live in the latter until automation of the light in 1936.^[2] A storm in 1973 washed this structure away and it was replaced by a skeleton tower.^[2]

The second house was sold to a private interest on the understanding that it would be moved; however, during the attempted relocation, the structure fell through the ice and was destroyed.^[5] The defunct first tower was given away in 1870, to be torn down.^[2] The tower's massive stone walls, however, defeated the new owner's attempts to destroy it, and the truncated tower still stands on the sandy spit.^[2]^[3]

Diagram of the light's location on the sand bar

References

^ "Long Tail Point, WI". LighthouseFriends. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: Wisconsin". United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. Archived from the original on 2017-05-01.
^ ^a ^b ^c Wardius, Ken; Wardius, Barb (2003). Wisconsin Lighthouses: A Photographic & Historical Guide. Black Earth, Wisconsin: Prairie Oak Press. p. 48. ISBN 9781879483606. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
^ "Sand Point Lighthouse". Terry Pepper. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
^ Harrison, Tim; Jones, Ray (2000). Lost Lighthouses: Stories and Images of America's Vanished Lighthouses. Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press. pp. 158–159. ISBN 9780762704439. Retrieved 2011-01-07.