Ontonagon Lighthouse, photo by siskokid

The Ontonagon Lighthouse is part of the Ontonagon Museum. Their page on the lighthouse explains that:

America’s first mineral rush began in earnest with the opening of the Copper District in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to the prospectors and mining developers following the Treaty of 1842 with the Ojibwe nation. Suddenly there was a great need for navigational aids. Among the first five lighthouses established on Lake Superior was the one at the mouth of the Ontonagon River, the largest river that flows into Lake Superior from the south shore. In 1851, a wooden lighthouse was constructed on the west side of the river’s mouth to guide ships to the port from which copper was being shipped from the mines upriver. In 1857, the Winslow Lewis light was replaced with a 5th order Fresnel lens, the latest thing in lighting technology.

At that time, there was a sand bar across the river’s mouth, so only smaller craft could enter the bowl-shaped harbor (the name Ontonagon is a corrupted Ojibwe word that infers a bowl or bowl shape). With the opening of the first Soo Lock in 1855, shipping volume increased dramatically. Permanent breakwaters were constructed at Ontonagon, the sandbar was dredged out, and Ontonagon became the busiest port on Lake Superior.

You can get lots more information and photos about the Ontonagon Lighthouse and the copper boom in the region from Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light.

Jim adds that the light was deactivated in 1963 after an automatic foghorn was installed on the west pier and a battery light was located at the end of the east pier at the  entrance into the Ontonagon harbor and marina. See his photo bigger and see more in his Lake Superior Lighthouses slideshow.