Pigeon Point Lighthouse
The first Chicago Lighthouse was built in 1832, and several more have followed. The 1832 light would have been the first erected on Lake Michigan, along with the first light erected at St. Joseph, Michigan.
The existing light was built at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1893, which was the site of the previous lights. It was moved to its present location on the north breakwater in 1919.
The station consists of a 48-foot high, brick-lined round steel tower that is 18-feet in diameter. The lantern is 10-sided built of cast iron, and houses a Third Order Fresnel Lens that flashes a red light 82 feet above the water. The lens had been displayed at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1891 and was destined for the new Point Loma California light. However, the lens was installed in the Chicago light when completed in 1893. Keepers manned the station until 1979 when the light was automated.
The tower is sandwiched between two one-story, gable roofed buildings. One is a fog signal building, and the other is a former boathouse. It appears as though the tower was moved first, from the mainland to the breakwater, and followed by the two buildings to complete a “lighthouse sandwich”.
The Chicago harbor Light is visible from downtown Chicago or the Navy Pier, but is best seen from a private boat. The light is an active aid to navigation and access is not permitted.
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The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
and on its outer point, some miles away,
the lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.
Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
in the white tip and tremor of the face.
And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,
with strange, unearhly splendor in the glare!
No one alone: from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean's verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge.
Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night o'er taken mariner to save.
And the great ships sail outward and return
Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn
They wave their silent welcome and farewells.
They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,
And eager faces, as the light unveils
Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.
The mariner remembers when a child,
on his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink
And when returning from adventures wild,
He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink.
Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same,
Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!
It sees the ocean to its bosum clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace:
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.
The startled waves leap over it; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
And steadily against its solid form
press the great shoulders of the hurricane.
The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din
of wings and winds and solitary cries,
Blinded and maddened by the light within,
Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.
A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of love,
it does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,
but hails the mariner with words of love.
“Sail on!” it says: “sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.
Be yours to bring man neared unto man.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
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