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Hi everybody, I'm Emily and I'm Vince and this is the lighthouse lowdown.

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Wish people could see our dance moves. We could do video. No. Oh yeah. Nobody wants to see

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my facial expressions. I think they do and they do and they would also be seeing me with my coffee

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I just made and my work clothes. Also for me sometimes it ruins it knowing what a person

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looks like because their face may not match their voice or something. Do you think that would help

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our case or hurt our case? Are you saying what are you saying? Who knows? I guess our face is over on

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our Instagram anyway so. Oh yeah. Anyway I do have a history buoy today. Buoy. It popped up

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during my research for the episode so we can have it. It'll appear a little later. Like a natural buoy.

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Nice. Yeah all natural. All natural. I like to put the buoys later. I did that once and it worked.

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What do you mean you like doing that? I did it once and it worked. That's what I mean.

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I disagree with this concept but I will let you do whatever creative wind takes you. Thanks. Welcome.

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So history buoy is sounding. Have you heard of that? No I don't think so. You look like you're

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gonna say something. I think I mean I think I've heard of it but I don't I can't recall

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what I think it is. Okay it is a method for measuring the depth of a body of water at different

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points. Yes. Which is important and it's probably something you heard when you were doing the case in.

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No we talked well yes but also we talked about sounding when we talked about

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what a knot is. We were talking about nautical. Really? I think a long time ago and then there

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was the beginning of the movie King Kong we were talking about. That's right yeah.

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Sounding but yes please remind us. Okay it's a pretty short buoy but I have a picture

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because usually these measurements are shown as just numbers on a map. It's a good way to determine

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if there are shallow areas and stuff but it's also used when a lighthouse would have like a wooden

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crib that fit to a shoal so they would carefully measure the area to build a structure off site

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that would fit on the shoal when they tow it to site so they don't have to spend all that time on

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the ocean when you could just take some measurements do it offshore and then tow it back out there. Yeah.

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So I pulled up a picture of what one of those might look like so it would be helpful while

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you're sailing to know where the areas of shallow water are and the old way that they used to measure

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this which can still be used today but obviously it just takes a lot longer than modern technology

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was to attach a weight to a line and then drop it through the water until it hits the ground.

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They would mark on the rope where the water line is while it's resting and then take it up and

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measure it above water and they would either do this in feet or fathoms and fathoms is just six feet.

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So six foot to one fathom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah this is cool. It's like a topographical map. Yeah.

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Reverse. Inverted. The modern way is to use sonar which uses sound waves and then they use the time

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that it takes for the wave to return to calculate what the depth is. I wonder if there's data

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collection going on out there to build like Garmin for example. Garmin builds fish finders

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and also GPS for diving and boats. I wonder if there's a database on soundography. I'm making

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that word up. Yeah like where like anytime someone takes a measurement it's like in their database

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or something. For example Pokemon Go. Oh my gosh yeah. I saw an article today. Pokemon Go.

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I guess this was always the plan. So some people are saying oh this is always the plan. It's not

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a secret but to me it was new. They are data mining and they always have been. That was always the

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plan. So they got people to walk around in real life with their phones to play this Pokemon game.

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Yeah. And they put specific Pokemon interest areas where they didn't have data and that data is being

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used for AI and automated driving and AI vehicles and AI machines. Well they need to make their

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GPS system better then. But they did it on purpose. They put poor GPS locations there on purpose.

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So as you're walking around like a teenager or you're in your car you're not supposed to be but

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you're helping to map their new system. So they just sold that for probably hundreds of millions

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of dollars. That data collection. Wow. And they made money the whole time on selling in-game data.

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Yeah all that. So I wonder if Garmin doesn't have not that that's evil or not that Garmin's evil but

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if they don't have some data mining going on with all their technology. Yeah because don't they have

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like boat technology for like finding fish and stuff. Okay so that's probably also like sonar

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sounding sort of thing. I think it is exactly. Yeah. Cool. Pretty neat stuff. But that's it. They

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use that at the lighthouse we're talking about today which is the Wagachance lighthouse. You said

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that confidently. Thank you. The Wagachance. I listened to the guy who owns the organization that

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owns the lighthouse say it a few times. Nice. So I think that's the best way. Wagachance. That's the

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best way to do it. So I don't know if you recognize the name of this lighthouse but we talked about it

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very briefly in our old Mackinac Point light episode and this is another listener lighthouse.

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So thank you to Travis for leaving a voicemail on our website and suggesting that we cover this

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lighthouse. Very good. We love voicemails. They're so goofy and you can tell people are like uh so

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yeah hello uh I'm Emily. Do we have one of those buttons where they can go back and redo it or is

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it just like you know. Um I'm not sure. Probably not is what I'm guessing. So yeah I guess I've

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never left a voicemail on our website so I don't know how it is. Well the yeah the company we work

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for um we work at separate divisions but the company uh we have these digital interviews

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and I did not get the job after my digital interview but you get like a

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one minute to record yourself answering a question that you get one more chance.

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It's like so much pressure. So thank you. Is it Travis? Travis. Very good. Yeah we love it. So

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we are heading back to Lake Michigan. Sorry to everybody. I. The great lakes. I tend to

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cover Lake Michigan and Maine a ton. I don't know what is happening. There's a lot of lighthouses

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there. I know but. A lot of them. That doesn't inherently mean. I don't know I think I'm drawn

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to Maine lighthouses which is funny because I've never been there. Anyway Vince is just looking at

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me. It's on the list. Maine? Yeah but it's. I know we're gonna go northwest and then well

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well in many years from now I guess we'll do whatever I want to do. Hey hey hey hey hey

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bologna. I'm just kidding. We did what we wanted what I wanted to do this year. And it was great.

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So now you plan the next one. We've started a system. I guess. You planned the last one.

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I know I'm just poking fun at you. Okay we're in Lake Michigan.

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Wagashan's Point ends seven miles out into the lake and it's full of shallow shoals and small

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islands. I have a picture from Google Maps. So this north of Sturgeon Bay is where we have

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Wagashan's Point and there's also the little disconnected the far one is I think it's the

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far one is Wagashan's Island and little bits and very shallow water all around there.

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Mackinac City. Yes the little star on there is where our old Mackinac Point is. Hey nice.

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So it's on there. $5,000 was appropriated in 1837 for a lighthouse marking this like little

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islandy point which was originally planned for being on the mainland. So like still on the

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the point you know where it sticks out into the water but not on one of the islands. However they

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did a survey as they do before they decided to build a lighthouse and it showed that the light

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would be better served out in the lake more to mark where boats were safe to travel which makes

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a lot of sense. Yeah. Why would you smack a lighthouse in the middle of an area where you

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really should mark the end where people go around. Yeah the middle I guess if you put it more inland

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you could just say hey stay far away from this light. Yeah. But then it makes it so inconvenient

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and they're having to take measurements and ever just aim for the lighthouse and go around it.

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They go. So like that's the better way to go. It's got to know which side you're on. Yeah right.

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So that's what they decided to do. So I have a picture there's Grays Reef lighthouse and above

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that I put a little pin where Wagachance is. Wow I expected it to be on Wagachance Island. I know

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it's actually far out because Google Maps doesn't show all the shallow areas so although

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they're showing the visual islands there's a lot of ground underneath that like reefs and shoals

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and all that that don't show up on the map. So I found where it is based on longitude and latitude

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and it took me a long time to find it on the map because Google doesn't make it easy. You can't

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just like you can't just type in latitude this longitude that it won't come up with any results

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so you have to like click around. Okay. Preface this to say that I probably don't know that there

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is an easier way to do this. So anyway that's where our lighthouse is and I don't know it.

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Is Grays Reef shown on the map because it's another significant lighthouse probably. Yes

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and also it's the reason why our lighthouse today is not showing on Google Maps is because

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it's technically ruins. Oh yeah. So shame this Grays Reef light came decades after

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Wagachance was out of service. So that's why it's so close. You said Wagachance we're talking 1830s.

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Yeah for the or for the allocation at least. Right. So yeah. So when it was first like hey

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we need a lighthouse here because we had a light ship the Lois McLean.

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Which had been anchored near Wagachance shoal for five years and as actually the first light ship

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on the Great Lakes. So oh cool. Yeah. So a little bit of fun history there but the light was hard

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to keep on during hot harsh weather because you know that a ship whips around with the waves

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and needed to be a towed away for the winter and spring because of ice. So they needed something

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more permanent and that also meant that they could re-signify the ship. So that's why we

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reallocate the Lois McLean to somewhere that needs a light ship. I wonder I don't mean to take us off

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track but maybe in the future I'll look into it. When they took these light ships off station

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because of the weather did trade in the region like stop like were merchants not running Lake

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Superior. Good question because they couldn't in through ice. It's solid ice. It must maybe

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that maybe they did like this sounds so stupid I'm sure but like sledding dogs like you know

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maybe that business picked up during the winter time or people just sheltered in place. I really

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don't know. Yeah maybe they just stopped shipments during the winter. We should look that up. That

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would be a good that would be good history Bowie. Well that's one of the reasons there's so many

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wrecks in the Great Lakes is because there's so much ship traffic. True. I don't know we should

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we have people we could ask who are literally professionals but I don't know if that was

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seasonally you know every every fall. Everything shut down. 80% of the wrecks happened because

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people had to get their last shipment in or something. Yeah interesting. Open question.

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Kind of cool. Should look more into that. So because they changed their plans originally the

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lighthouse was going to be on the mainland now it's going to be on a reef they needed a lot

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more money in order to build it so Congress sent another $25,000 in 1838 and then $38,000 more

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dollars in 1848. We never learned to budget. And another $20,500 in 1850. This is a very expensive

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lighthouse. And there was a solid 12 years between or like 13 years before between the first allocation

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of money and the last one so it took them that long to get around to like actually building the

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thing. But you also remember this was early on in like building caissons and cribs and stuff so

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I'm not surprised that it would take that long. The area that they wanted to build on was 12

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well between 4 and 12 feet of water. Okay. So like it's rocky you know it's up and down. Yeah.

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And so they did soundings in order to build a white and yellow pine

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crib on nearby St. Helena Island. Let's see if I have it. And they did all that sounding work

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with rope and weight at that time. Yes. It's this one up here. That's pretty neat. It made it into

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my picture. So yeah that so they would they built it on St. Helena and then towed it I think they

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said it was like 14 miles back to where the rock was that they were building on. The bottom of the

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crib up to the water line was filled with concrete and on top and I took quote from

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lighthouse friends because I don't know too much about what any of this really means but I figured

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it's probably I can just put any information out there and on top quote large blocks of hammer

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dressed Sandusky limestone set in hydraulic cement were used to form 16 foot tall bases for the tower

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and dwelling that rose four feet above the deck of the crib. Cool. The bottom of the crib was

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this work began in earnest in 1848 but in 1849 they started working on the tower because they

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finished the crib. They used yellow Milwaukee brick to build a circular tower with a story

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and a half keepers dwelling connected by a two foot walkway. So like somewhere else they referred

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to it as an integral lighthouse but I think since there's just even though it's just two feet I feel

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like they're if you're referring to as a walkway then they're not actually connected. I would consider

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this not to be an integral lighthouse. Two feet is not even enough space to open a door. Interesting.

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At least a standard door today. Oh yeah I didn't even think about how small two feet is. I mean you

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could have them both and open swing into the buildings which is likely what they did. Yeah.

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But that's close. Yeah I guess you'd want to keep them separate if you're like heating your home

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like I don't want to heat the entire lighthouse tower by. Just put in a door. Yeah I guess. I don't

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know. At least it was close. You know short commute. Yeah just a little walk. The wooden pier around the

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light station was 90 by 100 feet and was 12 feet above water covered in thick oak planks and I don't

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actually have a picture of it before the oldest picture that I have. Okay. So I have a drawing

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of like original plans for it. Beautiful. Yeah it is nice. I like the dome top. It's very old

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fashion for a lighthouse I feel. It still looks like that today but there's some differences that

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I don't want to just put on the screen until I talk about them. Okay. Look I see a ladder or steps

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on the center view. Yeah. And on the left view. Are those facing away from this

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keeper's house? I'm not sure. Maybe they're for emergencies. I don't actually know what the layout

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is referring to and I also don't know how old these drawings are so maybe it was before they

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had decided everything and it was just like a general sketch. I think I take it for granted

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a lot of people do now but the quality of these drawings done by hand. Oh I know. It's really

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incredible. It's so funny they'd be impressed by like straight lines but if you think about it

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there's they're artists as well as engineers. But yeah you can see in the bottom right the

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the shape of the original pier which changes. Okay. In 1850 an iron spiral staircase was added to the

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76 foot tall light tower so 76 is pretty good especially like normally we have little light

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houses. On the open water yeah. Yeah. Along with its lantern room a boat house a wood house fog

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bell and a boat crane that they added so they just finished it up by like adding all the extra stuff

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and then in 1851 Wagachants light was operational sporting a third order lens which they were

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placed with a fourth order with a white flash every 90 seconds sometime before 1858 but I

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couldn't they they actually don't even have the light list on US LHS anymore so. Wow. I know. A

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head keeper was the only one at the light for the first two years of operation and they had to

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have a second head keeper. Yeah. So they had to have a second head keeper for the first two years

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of operation resulting in a lot of keeper turnover because it was so isolated and lonely. Yeah. And

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by 1830 1853 they added a first. My gosh first assistant position with a second added in 1856.

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Okay. Yeah. Every couple of years they were like let's just add another one. A little bit more

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of a second head keeper. Yeah. And they were planning to have that many people. So I didn't

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see anything about it but I'm interested to know if it was difficult living. I'm sure this was a

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stag station so they wouldn't have families. Well and they're on a crib as well so there's nowhere

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to go. Yeah. You can't go take a walk. Can you imagine. Oh how cramped you would feel that you

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can't go on a walk. Nowhere to go. By 1860 the wooden crib needed some serious help and while

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they were trying to fix it they did a thorough examination which you should do and found out

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that they needed two hundred thousand dollars in order to fix it because really they just needed

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to build a new one. And like the fact that the lighthouse is already there it was at a loss.

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Yeah. It makes it seriously problematic but the lighthouse board urged Congress to give them the

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money saying the need for Wagachance was quote second to none in the Lake region which I would

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have thought was a good idea. But the area is very shallow and unpredictable. Yeah I mean this is a

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little silly but first glance I took at the map you know this is where I'd take my boat and I would

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have wrecked. Yeah I would have sunk it. I know it's like oh it's far enough away from the islands

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that there's probably no shallow area but they're just in the middle of nowhere. You never and even

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the area that it was built on 90 by 100 feet ranged from 4 to 12 feet of water. That's like

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so after they received the funds because Congress did give them two hundred thousand dollars it was

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decided to build an elliptical stone pier instead of the wooden square one. I'm not really sure why

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like an oval but equal squished circle. I don't know maybe there was some cost benefit to having

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some straight lines going on. Or maybe like yeah maybe there's some sort of like like when waves

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hit it or when ice hit it stronger to have curves than probably square or the square original.

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Stress distribution is optimized in a circle. So the closer you are to a circle the best you can

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distribute. Interesting and yeah earlier I said circle foundation I meant square. Okay. It was

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square. That was my bad. Cool. So the excavation teams worked in an iron cofferdam. Oh yeah. Okay

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I was like I feel like we talked about it but the words are not clicking with an airlock in an

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attempt to reach bedrock for their foundation to sit on. This project was the first time a pneumatic

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process was used to sink a case in foundation for a lighthouse. Very interesting. After they had

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reached 15 feet into the ground and not reached bedrock they were like I think we're done. Oh no

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oh no. They were just like we'll quit here. So they halted excavation in 1868 and just were like

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this will be good enough. They're just which it's still standing so it was good enough.

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But it's funny when they're like we're reaching bedrock and they're like 15 feet's probably good.

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That's crazy. Yeah if you want to hear more about cofferdam and caissons go check out the last

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episode on Baltimore Harbor. Yeah. Talk about that one. Two episodes ago 65. Go check out. Two ago.

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We are flying. Well I know recording a lot pre-holidays. But yeah 15 feet under they may

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have you know determined this is not bedrock but look how solid it is. Yeah I think it was a lot

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of rock and there were like big boulders that they were breaking up and moving so it's just kind of

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very expensive. A year later the foundation pier was laid inside the cofferdam and a stone pier was

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built on top and a new keeper's dwelling was built for twelve thousand dollars because they figured

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why not. Oh that's probably they made it probably bigger for more keepers at that point. Oh I hope

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so. However less than a decade later we are once again in trouble. The lighthouse board noted the

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station was quote entirely out of repair and quote needing twenty five thousand dollars for more work.

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So we are just it is just a money sucker. We are still we're still not even into the 1880s and it's

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00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:22,480
like hundreds of thousands of dollars. What was the cause of the need for these repairs. This one was

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00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:29,280
the actual tower and the dwelling that were like falling into disrepair. So they encased both in

218
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:35,440
iron sheets. Oh my gosh. And added a new steam fog whistle and they also added a new lens that was

219
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fixed illuminating all the way around with work completed in 1884. So it took them a long time to

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get all of that enacted. That's crazy. Yeah jumping ahead into the 90s 1893 the dwelling needed a new

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roof and paint which they did in horizontal white and red bands including the tower which this is

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the first time I have a picture of the lighthouse. So you can definitely see the original design in

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there but the keeper's house is probably a lot bigger. It's it's more space than you would think.

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See that looks like a full operation. Yeah. Like a well-built. See yeah that's the boat house in

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front there. So big house multiple chimneys full tower clad in iron. Yeah. Yeah that looks expensive.

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I know and I'm interested it shows the square on the outside but you can see on the inside the

227
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elliptical actual foundation pier. So there was some difference between the two and maybe that

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ladder you saw earlier was coming down to this. Like it looks like just a spot like a barrier for

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ice. Yeah maybe. Like that sloped kind of shape. They also changed the light characteristic to a

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white flash every 45 seconds and so they didn't change the lens or anything they just added two

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flash panels that rotated around the light so it gave it the illusion of flashing with a fixed lens.

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I feel like they're changing flash patterns all the time. I know I think it's because they were

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adding more lighthouses around the area. Must be. Three years later they added a large oh here it is.

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Obviously okay in my defense I took these notes all in one sitting took me like how long was it

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because you fell asleep at 730. A day. It took me like five hours straight sitting to take these

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notes so some of the details. Pretty quick. All right what are you saying? I spend a lot of time

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on episodes they're not better I just spend more time. Well your notes scare me when I look at

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your notes you just copy and paste things from. I don't read the whole thing. No I'm saying you

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copy and paste important things from resources and then reference those as you speak. I my brain

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I'm a bullet point person. It's got to be in my own words because if I'm reading something it's

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going to be obvious. Yeah I don't write a script. You know whenever I'm like quoting stuff I'm like

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second to none in the lake region. Nice. So here it is yeah yeah yeah. Sorry 1896.

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They added a large concrete protecting pier around the outside presumably for ice. Oh yeah so there

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it is. This big square with the sloping sides. Two miles north of this lighthouse is White

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Shoal lighthouse which we cover in episode 58. Its construction was completed in 1910 causing

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Waukesha to discontinue in 1912. Wait White Shoals is way up there. It's two miles. So White Shoals

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must be where ships were routed to to hug White Shoals rather than here to avoid this. I don't

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remember what the notes were but I have this vague memory that you were supposed to go tight around

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White Shoals. White Shoals I remember was a bastard to build as well. Yeah but it's much larger and

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more powerful than this lighthouse so then they built it and they're like we don't need it.

251
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I have a picture from 1931 that so at this point it had been discontinued for almost 20 years

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but it shows a it's a good picture of the iron shell they put around the entire thing. Oh those

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are rivets. Uh-huh and even the windows you can see that they can bar them closed but they're also

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made of metal. It's pretty cool and it makes sense if you're closing up shop for the winter then

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you've got to protect your windows. Yeah porthole window it looks like or maybe that's an air

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intake or exhaust and then shutters that are steel. Everything's riveted. It's so funny I just think

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of welding. Yeah how things have changed. Oh man that is crazy. So it held up well for a long time.

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I have another picture later that shows the 30s 1930s. The picture yeah 1931. 100 year old light

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station at this time. Yeah almost almost yeah crazy. 1943 during World War II the Navy used

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many Lake Michigan islands to train naval forces including the islands of Wagachants

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and Lake Michigan was used since the ocean was unsafe you know because war and all yeah the

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German U-boats and all that and so they converted two luxury liners stripped of their first two

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cabins and given 500 foot wooden flight decks so they converted two like cruise ships into

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aircraft carriers. Yes oh my gosh I like I don't have the word and I guarantee it's not written

265
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anywhere in my notes. Aircraft carrier. I have a picture but it was um with wood deck. So there's

266
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a picture up top of what they used to look like and then when they were converted. Man we did

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some cool stuff. I know so the C and B and the greater buffalo were transformed into the USS

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Wolverine and the USS Sable. That's really neat. I know how cool that you can just convert it just

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like it doesn't click to me that it would be how like do they gut the inside there's almost no

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similarities between the first and the second ship. It's so funny. There's a sidetrack. Okay.

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Just cut it later if you want. I'm ready. There's some ships that my dad I think Iowa class

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battleships I think that's what they were called but they were built in World War II towards

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the end and they didn't see a lot of action is what I understood but we had them as museums

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like these I think these two or three ships that were like literally you can walk around

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the war is over it's been 20 years yeah and then um there was some conflict in the 80s

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uh desert storm I think okay I know very little of this clearly but these ships were converted

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they were upfitted with armor and modern weapons at the time. Why is that so cool? We redeployed

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them oh my gosh and they ended up uh actually firing their like long gun cannons. Oh my gosh.

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Um so there's images with 1980s quality over like from an airplane of the battleships firing

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at the land I don't know even where. Yeah they still got it. Pretty cool. Like that's so neat.

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There's a concept that was actually drawn up to further employ modern technology with these ships

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because they were already built. Yeah. It wasn't uh taken up luckily. Um are they still can you

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still see? I think they were retired and dismantled. Man. I think so. I can go find it later. It's a

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sidetrack. Went backwards a little there. Other military re-ups upfitting that's really interesting.

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That happened with light ships too. There was a couple instances of merchant ships being turned

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into light ships so it happened around it's probably a huge cost saver even though I can't

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really wrap my head around how you would turn a luxury liner into a aircraft carrier that's

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but anyway pilots would take off from Glenview airport which is just outside of Chicago and land

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on these ships to practice landing on aircraft carriers. Wow. And um at this time the secret

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stag one drone program began in 1943 teaching pilots to remote control unmanned aircraft with

291
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bombs our first drones. 1940s? Yep. How did they do that? We didn't have. Just radio controlled

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and they were very difficult. I mean they they only used them the next year like a few times and the

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hit rate was like 50 percent and so they didn't. I didn't even know about this technology. It's is

294
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there's a ton of information on it and I'm going to have it in my show notes if anyone's interested

295
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:04,400
in reading about it. I didn't go I read the whole thing but I didn't take notes on all of it so

296
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obviously the thing we're focused on in the lighthouse and guess who else was focused on

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on the lighthouse because you got to practice aiming at something with your

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no no way yeah our poor lovely Wagachants lighthouse was the target for their practices

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and after many hits and a resulting fire that ended up gutting everything inside the lighthouse

300
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it is left only as a shell of its former self. It's a it's a surprise when you bomb your own

301
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stuff what happens to it. I know. Although I'm still impressed. We just kind of have a skeleton

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of the lantern room the shell this picture is old steel hanging down yeah maybe the 60s or something

303
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:53,680
black and white so yeah the shell casing started to peel away. Damn they bombed the lighthouse

304
00:31:53,680 --> 00:32:00,480
there was no other island out there with nothing on it repeatedly I'm like oh it's rude. I guess

305
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:06,000
the government owned it right but at that point it had been built for a hundred plus years.

306
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:13,440
You'd think you would still I guess I don't know I would still see it as something historical

307
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but if nothing's protecting it then the military kind of has a lot of leeway with the things they

308
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practice on which they own several times like just bomb it. The military owns the lighthouse

309
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:32,160
at this time so. Coast Guard. Crazy sad. Sad. In 2006 the Coast Guard deemed the remains of

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00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:38,800
Wagachants to be excess clearly and offered it up for no cost by the National Historic

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Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 which we talked about in a previous episode. Sure did.

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It wasn't for another five years that someone finally stepped up to do something because nobody

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was going to take this for no reason. So two two U.S. senators announced that three Michigan

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Lighthouses South Haven Pier Head Light, Middle Island Light and Wagachants Light would be

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00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:06,560
transferred to local preservation groups. So I don't know if that meant they had to they could

316
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skip the whole process but Wagachants Lighthouse Preservation Society stepped up and were working

317
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to restore the lighthouse. But in 2021 the nonprofit dissolved after they concluded that

318
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the lighthouse couldn't be saved because in 2019 there was like record high water levels

319
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in Lake Michigan and they like check on it because you know it's so far out there they're checking

320
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ever on it every once in a while and they found that the water had knocked out a lot of the stones

321
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that are on its foundation. So like even here in this picture you can tell it's not in very good

322
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:52,240
shape. Well it's been bombed. Yeah I know. I know but oh I think I have a picture. I took a screenshot

323
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um I watched a news like a news story they did on it. You can just see it's just like eating away

324
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into at some point it's going to be a critical some cavity here and it's going to tip into the

325
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:11,600
lake. So that's sad. RIP. Yeah so they dissolved because they learned that it would cost three

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hundred thousand dollars just to protect the base temporarily for a single year and they're like

327
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:24,240
okay we can't that that's even just to keep it as it is for that long not even. There's only so many

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resources available even if you have all the care in the world. There's yeah so I've got a picture

329
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up of it's uh I can't remember what these birds are called it's it's a word uh it's a type of bird

330
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:43,520
I haven't heard of before but they nest there. It's like fine you guys have it. I know it looks like

331
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:48,160
something like a prop from a movie or something. Yeah but also the chimney whoever built that

332
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chimney did a damn good job. Yeah got through bombings fires. It looks new. Everything else

333
00:34:54,160 --> 00:35:02,240
looks like hell. Hundreds of years of ice and wind and hang in there. So there's still hope

334
00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:07,280
obviously that somebody's going to like step up and restore it because the coast guards suggested

335
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:13,200
they demolish it and they're like I can't remember who some somebody was like we're not going to do

336
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that because there's still a chance that somebody could fix it. I think it is too far gone because

337
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:27,920
too far gone because nobody has the money to put to I mean this would be multi-million dollar. Yeah

338
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:33,040
you'd have to I mean I do not know you'd have to start with a big casein that just dries and isolates

339
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this and then you could work within the casein to start building a new lighthouse. I don't think

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that I mean think about the tower think about a structure that's been literally attacked. I keep

341
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,880
I keep saying bombed. Let's say it's been targeted with guns or whatever. I don't know what they did

342
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:58,480
right but something happened to it. It lost its metal steel casing. I don't know how a structural

343
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:03,520
engineer is supposed to say yep we can put new brick on the outside of this. Like are you going

344
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:09,920
to x-ray the whole thing? Right. I mean that's a real question because how do you confirm this is

345
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:16,240
structurally safe where people from the public could access this space again? That you'd feel

346
00:36:16,240 --> 00:36:21,600
comfortable people walking in there. I don't know. And also looking at this photo it appears the

347
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:28,000
metal casing is still on there but the the one that was on the tower peeled off but there's still

348
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:33,600
I was looking at that hole in the side and I was like that looks like metal. Crazy. It's just kind

349
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:38,000
of hidden under all the bird poop. Well you never know who's going to come along. Yeah there could

350
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:43,440
be somebody. Maybe somebody passes away and they had a couple of million dollars they left for the

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specific use here. I don't I just yeah somebody wins a lottery and this is their thing you know.

352
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I hope maybe someday or it'll be the end of yet another lighthouse. No one's going and climbing

353
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that thing now. Oh no. There's no need to. There's no stairs. Yeah there's no need to knock this down.

354
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:07,520
It's unfortunate that is the story of Wagashawt's lighthouse hoping one day that somebody will step

355
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up and you know take one for the team and rebuild this thing. It's neat that you can still you know

356
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:20,240
from a boat or presumably a plane you can still see an item that was started in the 1830s.

357
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That's really neat. Yeah yeah and it is pretty it's just decrepit. It's a unique build. It's

358
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very pleasing to look at. So yeah sorry that was a bummer. It had a cool history at least. Yeah.

359
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A lot of places have no history. Thank you to our listener for suggesting it because we knew about it but I was like oh.

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That's right. You give us reasons to look deeper into Lighthouse's specific ones and they always

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turn out to be interesting. Well thank you for listening in to yet another Lighthouse Lowdown

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episode. You can check out our Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown. Our website thelighthouselowdown.com

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where you can watch videos, listen to our podcast, leave reviews which we love, leave voicemails, send

364
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:09,920
us messages, all that jazz all in one place. You ready? Yeah thanks for hanging out. Yeah we'll

365
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catch you next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown. Nice with Gustav.