Photo copyright 2002 John Kulba; text below copyright 2003 Terry Pepper. Used by permission.
Thanks to John Kulba for supplying this photo of the Naubinway Island lighthouse and to Terry Pepper, webmaster of Seeing the Light: The Lighthouses of the Western Great Lakes, for the following history of the station.
Photo copyright 2002 John Kulba; text below copyright 2003
Terry Pepper. Used by permission.
Naubinway Island sits approximately 0.8 miles south of Millecoquins Point on the north shore of Lake Michigan. It is a small island surrounded by rocks and shoals. An area of less than one-foot depth lies 0.6 miles east of the island. A detached 14-foot shoal sits approximately 0.8 miles to the SW.
The Naubinway Island Light was established in 1931 as an unmanned aid to guide local traffic.
The original structure consisted of a white steel skeleton tower on a concrete base with a 32-foot focal plane, typical of such minor aids constructed at that time. The 110-candlepower acetylene-powered 200mm lens had a visible range of 10 miles, and exhibited a characteristic 4-second cycle, consisting of a white flash of 0.4 seconds duration, followed by an eclipse of 3.6 seconds.
The skeleton tower was removed at some time between 1977 and 1997, and was replaced by the existing white cylindrical tower of typical D-9 design with the same focal plane and characteristic of the original light.
The D-9 currently exhibits a 200mm Tidelands Signal acrylic optic powered by a 12-volt DC photovoltaic array.
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January 13, 2003. Checked and revised December 31, 2007. Site copyright 2008 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.