Volume 1, Issue 5 - August, 2023

President's Letter

Dear Friends,



I hope this message finds you all in good spirits and high tides as we navigate through August.

With immense pride and gratitude, I write to you today as we have some fantastic news to share and some exciting changes within our organization.

First and foremost, I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly and his staff for their outstanding support and dedication to our cause. Thanks to his efforts and commitment to preserving the rich maritime heritage of our city, August 7, 2023, is on its way to being officially recognized as National Lighthouse Day in Chicago as Alderman Reilly introduced a Resolution to the Chicago City Council at the July 19, 2023, City Council Meeting.

This significant resolution not only honors the historical importance of our beloved Chicago Harbor Lighthouse but also highlights the vital role lighthouses have played in guiding and safeguarding our maritime community. Our heartfelt gratitude to Alderman Reilly and his staff for their invaluable contribution to our mission.

In the spirit of gratitude, it is bittersweet for me to announce that our outgoing Treasurer, Michael Kovacs, will be stepping down from his role. Michael demonstrated unwavering dedication and exceptional financial acumen during his brief tenure with us, and we are deeply grateful for his valuable contributions.

As we bid farewell to Michael, I am delighted to welcome our new Treasurer, Nick Naber, to the Board of Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse. Nick comes with a wealth of experience in finance and a passion for our mission.

From day one, Nick has hit the ground running, implementing new accounting software and streamlining financial processes to enhance transparency and efficiency. We are incredibly fortunate to have Nick on board, and I do not doubt that his expertise will be instrumental in shaping a bright and prosperous future for our organization. Look for Nick’s bio in the September newsletter.

Our commitment to preserving, restoring, and celebrating the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse remains more robust than ever. With the official recognition of National Lighthouse Day, we have an incredible opportunity to raise awareness about our cause and inspire more individuals to rally behind our efforts.

As we celebrate National Lighthouse Day this year, let us remember the significance of lighthouses as symbols of hope, guidance, and resilience. They have withstood the test of time, shining their light through the darkest storms, just as our beloved Chicago Harbor Lighthouse continues to do.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to each of you, our esteemed members and supporters. Your unwavering dedication, contributions, and passion for preserving our maritime heritage drive the success of our organization. Together, we will continue to make a lasting impact on the legacy of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse.

In closing, let us embrace this exciting new chapter with renewed enthusiasm and commitment. The light of our cause shines brightly, illuminating a path to a future where the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse stands tall, guiding generations to come.

Thank you for your unwavering support.

Be Safe and Be Well!

Regards,

Kurt Lentsch

Chief Dreamer and President, Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse

Your contribution will enable us to offset the start-up costs for the

Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse

and begin the work of preservation and restoration...

We are very grateful for your generosity.

The Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is a 501c3 organization

so please make a tax-deductible gift to help us Save the Lighthouse!

www.SaveTheLighthouse.org

Loyola History Professor and Lighthouse Volunteer Aims to Achieve National Landmark Status for the

Chicago Harbor Lighthouse

In honor of National Lighthouse Day on August 7, Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is proud to announce that the organization is seeking National Historic Landmark status for the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse.

Loyola University history professor and Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse volunteer Historian, Ted Karamanski, Ph.D., is currently writing the application for National Historic Landmark (NHL) status.

A rare designation beyond National Register and Chicago Landmark, which the Lighthouse has already attained, National Historic Landmark status would enable Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse to apply for a National Park Service’s "Save America's Treasures” grant, a program that celebrates America's premier cultural resources.

A recent recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Midwest History Association, Ted is currently a tenured history professor and founder of the Loyola’s Public History program. Steeped in and enamored of Chicago history, Ted has authored a number of books about the city, including Rally 'Round the Flag : Chicago and the Civil War and Maritime Chicago and Mastering the Inland Seas: How Lighthouses, Navigational Aids, and Harbors Transformed the Great Lakes and America

A native Chicagoan, Ted grew up near Chicago’s Union Stockyards where both his parents worked. Ted received his B.A., master’s and Ph.D. from Loyola.

Following is a brief excerpt from the application to the National Historic Landmark federal designation program, which describes the historical significance of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse. The complete narrative more fully establishes the political, economic, maritime safety, and geographic context for the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse. It also provides an overview of lighthouses built in Chicago leading up to the present Lighthouse. The core argument made in the application is that the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is eligible for NHL status under National Park Service criteria 1, “Developing the American Economy.”

As soon as we have a final version of the complete application narrative, we will share that information in a future newsletter and make it available on our website.

Significance of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse

In 1893, at the time of the construction of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse, the Port of Chicago was at the height of its economic significance.

When the harbor first opened in the 1830s, the site was only a “miserable collection of fur trader’s cabins.” By 1890, more than a million Americans called the city home. A few years later, the poet Carl Sandberg lionized Chicago as “Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.”

In 1865 Chicago added iron ore to its commodity collection. The modern American steel industry was born on the banks of the river harbor when the North Chicago Rolling Mill produced the first steel rail in America. The factory later grew into the Illinois Steel Corporation and was the seed from which emerged the world’s first billion-dollar business, the U.S. Steel Corporation.

The vast steel rail network that reached like a spider web out from Chicago and into the western plains was a key complement to the harbor. Lake vessels dominated the eastward movement of bulk cargoes, and the option of water transportation suppressed rail rates out of Chicago, making it the ideal location for merchandise giants like Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck and Co.

By the time the harbor lighthouse was lit, Chicago had lost its place as America’s busiest port. However, Chicago remained one of the four busiest ports in the entire world, trailing only London, New York, and by a slim margin Hamburg. What was especially remarkable about this statistic was that unlike the other great ports of call in the world, Chicago’s port was closed by winter for a large part of the year. Nor did it have impressive natural endowments. The harbor port was a narrow stream only a couple of hundred feet wide. A new arrival to the city in 1898 dubbed it “the smallest and busiest river in the world.” 

It is the significance of Chicago’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century maritime history that renders the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse its national historical importance. The lighthouse is the oldest existing structure that links the landscape of the modern city to that storied and under-appreciated past.

The splendid and beautifully maintained Grosse Point Lighthouse is not in Chicago. Its importance is tributary to the Chicago harbor light. With its magnificent tall tower and powerful second-order lens, the Grosse Point station was designed to cast a beam of light out deep into the lake and notify navigators they were approaching Chicago. It was the job of the Chicago harbor lights on the breakwater and the range lights on the North Pier to bring vessels securely into the river. 

to limit the amount of water the city was allowed to divert from Lake Michigan.

Those works were constructed between 1936 and 1938. At best, the Grosse Point light is part of the maritime cultural landscape of the Chicago region. It's bucolic timbered setting, next to the Northwestern University campus, lacks the integrity of setting and association to convey the bustle of Chicago’s maritime past. Of course, Grosse Point richly deserves its NHL status due to it being the architectural work of a master, Orlando Poe, the greatest builder of American lighthouses of the Great Lakes, and its strong association with the maritime history of Chicago’s North Shore.

Two of the other maritime landmarks in the Chicago harbor also are not linked to the period of Chicago’s maritime greatness. A few thousand yards southwest of the harbor light is the Cape Cod style headquarters and boat house of the Chicago Police Marine Unit. The structure was commissioned in 1876 as the base for the U.S. Life-Saving Service in the nation’s busiest port.

Unfortunately, that structure burned down in 1933. Three years later, a new station was completed. It functioned as a Coast Guard station until 1966, when it was turned over to the city. Also built after the heyday of the Port of Chicago was Municipal Pier, now known as Navy Pier, which was completed in 1916. It was designed as a commercial passenger terminal and an entertainment venue. This site was formerly a National Historic Landmark. Unfortunately, in the 1980s and again in the twenty-first century, historic structures at the pier were gutted to make way for tourist-attracting venues. The property was stripped of its NHL status by the National Park Service on the recommendation of the Illinois SHPO. 

The wrecking ball also was unkind to another structure that might have rivaled the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse for historical significance. When the Chicago River port began to decline in the period after 1910, it was because much of the industrial and grain trade was gradually relocated twenty miles south to the Calumet River. The first lighthouse at this site had a brief history. Built in 1849, it was discontinued in 1853 because it was located near the mouth of an unimproved harbor and had the effect of luring ships heading for Chicago to an incorrect and dangerous destination.

In 1870 however, the Army Corps of Engineers finally began to clear the entrance to the Calumet, and the river harbor there quickly became an adjunct to Chicago’s port. In 1873 a new lighthouse was built at the river’s mouth. Heavy industries in need of a larger footprint than could be afforded in densely settled Chicago, moved to the area in the 1880s. This was also a time when Great Lakes shipping began to transform from small wood sail-powered bulk carriers to larger steel-hulled ships which were unsuited to the narrow Chicago River harbor.

Following the 1910 Burnham Plan for Chicago, that city turned away from developing a modern industrial harbor near the center city, and the Calumet River gradually became Chicago’s principle commercial and industrial harbor. Beginning in 1898, the Lighthouse Board developed a new lighthouse for the Calumet at the end of a long pier jutting out from the river’s mouth. This structure underwent many changes over the years but consistently marked one of the busiest harbors on the lakes. Inexplicably this structure was demolished in 1995, and replaced with a small, automated utilitarian beacon.

The Split Rock Lighthouse, which is an existing National Historic Landmark, documents a very different phase of maritime history than the Chicago Harbor lighthouse. The Chicago light is the story of the rise of one of the nation’s most important urban industrial areas. The Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior was not built until 1910. Its significance rests on two factors. One element is the important role of the Mesabi Iron Range in the evolution of the American steel industry. Great Lakes shipping was and is essential to steel production in the United States, and the Split Rock navigational aid is critical to the safe conduct of that trade. The lighthouse is tied to the development of the extractive industry in Minnesota.

Split Rock, like Grosse Point, is also a masterpiece of lighthouse design and construction. The tower’s setting amid a forested wilderness, atop a sheer 124-foot cliff was an engineering challenge and makes for a setting that is picturesque in the extreme. That NHL’s clear national significance represents the extractive resource frontier of the Great Lakes region, while the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse represents the urban, industrial, and recreational aspect of the inland sea’s role in American history.

The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is the single best artifact to demonstrate the significance of Chicago’s rich and nationally significant maritime history.

The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse in its original location behind the breakwater in 1914,

being visited by a supply ship Photo: National Archive

The development of the American economy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was deeply connected to the downtown harbor guarded by the lighthouse. The lighthouse has the historical integrity of design, location, setting, materials, workmanship, and especially feeling and association to convey Chicago’s maritime impact on United States history. The lighthouse is an unofficial symbol of the city, marketed in photographs, posters, napkins, cup holders, models, and even Christmas ornaments. Recognition of this historic navigational aid by the National Park Service’s landmarks program will play an important role in helping a growing group of citizens rally support for the rehabilitation and public interpretation of this landmark.

Photo credit: Osprey Observe

NATIONAL LIGHTHOUSE DAY - AUGUST 7, 2023

In the vast maritime history of the United States, lighthouses have served as beacons of hope, guiding ships and sailors through treacherous waters. These iconic structures have played a vital role in ensuring safe navigation and protecting lives at sea. Recognizing their significance, National Lighthouse Day was established to honor these guardians of the coast and celebrate their historical contributions.

The roots of National Lighthouse Day can be traced back to August 7, 1789, when the U.S. Congress approved an act to establish and support lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers. This landmark legislation, signed into law by President George Washington, marked the birth of the United States Lighthouse Service (USLHS). Over the following years, the USLHS diligently erected lighthouses along the nation's expansive coastline, safeguarding the lives and livelihoods of countless mariners.

The idea of dedicating a day to honor lighthouses gained traction in the 19th century as maritime communities recognized the importance of these structures. However, it wasn't until 1989 that the United States Congress designated August 7 as National Lighthouse Day, commemorating the bicentennial anniversary of the federal lighthouse establishment. This special day pays homage to the rich maritime heritage and the relentless efforts of lighthouse keepers, who faithfully tended to these beacons, ensuring their lights stayed illuminated.

National Lighthouse Day serves as a reminder of the remarkable legacy left by lighthouses. It encourages preservation efforts for these architectural marvels that have stood as sentinels along the coastline. Historical societies, preservation organizations, and lighthouse enthusiasts organize various events on this day, including guided tours, exhibitions, and educational programs. These activities not only celebrate the engineering and architectural achievements but also shed light on the human stories and experiences associated with lighthouse keeping.

Lighthouses are more than just navigational aids; they embody strength, resilience, and hope. The symbolism behind these towering structures resonates deeply with people worldwide. National Lighthouse Day provides an opportunity for communities to express their appreciation for lighthouses and the men and women who served as keepers. It acknowledges the important role lighthouses played in connecting the nation, fostering commerce, and safeguarding lives.

As we commemorate National Lighthouse Day, we honor the legacy of these architectural icons and the dedication of those who maintained them. While many lighthouses have now been automated or decommissioned, their historical significance remains indelible. Through ongoing efforts in restoration, preservation, and education, we can ensure that future generations understand and appreciate the invaluable contributions of lighthouses to our maritime heritage.

National Lighthouse Day stands as a beacon of recognition for the vital role lighthouses have played in shaping the United States'; maritime history. It serves as a reminder of the unwavering commitment of lighthouse keepers and instills a sense of appreciation for these majestic structures that have guided ships safely through the night for centuries.

The iconic Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is a testament to the city's rich maritime history and has been a symbol of strength and resilience for generations. However, today, it faces challenges threatening its existence and historical significance.

As charter operators, you have a unique opportunity to be our ally in spreading the message about the current status of this historic landmark and our mission to preserve, restore, and celebrate it.

The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse, with its distinctive white tower, has guided countless vessels safely into the harbor for over a century. Despite its enduring legacy, the lighthouse requires attention. Harsh weather conditions and the passage of time have taken their toll, leading to significant wear and tear. 

By sharing the story of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse during your trips, you can raise awareness about its current state and the importance of safeguarding it for future generations. We have a Tour Guide Fact Sheet and Charter Cards you can pass out to your customers.

Our mission is twofold: to undertake extensive restoration work to maintain the lighthouse's structural integrity and historical accuracy. Secondly, we aim to celebrate its storied past by creating a captivating visitor center that educates tourists about its significance in shaping the city's maritime narrative.

into your tours and social media channels, you can reach a wider audience and inspire a collective effort to save this beloved landmark.

Furthermore, your charter guests can contribute directly to the cause, generating much-needed funds for the restoration and celebration projects.

Let us join hands in this noble endeavor and become ambassadors for the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse. Together, we can ensure that this historical gem continues to shine its light for many more generations to come, guiding both ships and hearts along the captivating shores of Lake Michigan.

If you are interested in receiving more information about how you can help or get a supply of passenger cards and tour guide fact sheets, email steveclements@savethelighthouse.org.

VOLUNTEER YOUR TIME AND TALENT

Photo credit: Barry Butler

We need your help, and we are asking you to volunteer and join us in our mission to save the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse and keep its legacy alive for generations to come. 

We are a passionate organization dedicated to preserving, restoring, and celebrating the historic Chicago Harbor Lighthouse for future generations. Our mission would not be possible without the help of dedicated volunteers who share our passion and commitment to this iconic landmark.

As a volunteer with Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse, you will have the

opportunity to gain valuable experience, meet new people, and make a meaningful impact in preserving a historic Chicago landmark that is cherished by our city.

If you are interested in donating your talents and joining our team, please visit our

volunteer page at savethelighthouse.org/volunteer to learn more.

Currently, we are seeking talented and experienced part-time volunteers to assist us in the areas of fundraising (especially grant writing), construction, and community outreach to help us build and maintain our connections to local and national organizations.

41°53'22"N 87°35'26"W

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