MICHIGAN TRAVEL TIPS
FROM
THE HOLOGLOBE PRESS
(The 198th Edition)
(Revised)
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
www.hologlobepress.com
RULES OF USE
The reports and stories contained on this Web page have been put together with information taken from "The Victor Swanson Fabulous Files of Places to See in Michigan and Wisconsin" and with information obtained from operators and staffers of tourist attractions and from press releases, Web sites, and other sources. The reports and stories are provided as a public service by Victor Swanson and The Hologlobe Press. Almost all persons and entities, such as staffers of radio stations, may freely use the materials; neither AAA Michigan nor any employee of AAA Michigan may use, distribute, download, transmit, copy, or duplicate any of the material presented on this page in any way or through any means.
- - - Travel Thoughts for Everyone - - -
In 1896, Forty Mile Point Light Station was constructed on land that was along Lake Huron and was about seven miles north of Rogers City, Michigan, and the main building of the light station was Forty Mile Point Lighthouse, and the property of the light station, which would be referred to as the "reservation" in the early decades, had such other buildings as a barn, an oil house, a privy, a boat house, and a fog-signal building. The Forty Mile Point Lighthouse had a basement, a first floor, and a second floor, and the outside walls were made of reddish brick, and on top of the tower was a lantern room (or, simply, a lantern), and within the lantern room was a fourth-order Fresnel lens that had six sides, each of which had a bullseye in the center, five prisms above the bullseye, and three prisms below the bullseye. The Fresnel lens was considered a rotating lens, because there as a clockworks machine--a machine that had to be wound up about every two hours and a half--that rotated the lens. The head lighthouse keeper at the lighthouse on April 30, 1897--Xavier Rains--fired up the lighthouse for the first time, and at the time, the assistant lighthouse keeper was Edward J. Lane. In June 1914, John E. Smith (the head lighthouse keeper) and Xavier Rains (the assistant lighthouse keeper) were ordered to paint the top ten feet of the north side of the tower and the top ten feet of the east side of the tower white so that sailors or mariners on Lake Huron could see the lighthouse better during the daylight hours. In May 1919, the Fresnel lens and the clockworks were removed, and another lens was set up in the tower, and that lens was considered a "fixed lens" because the lens did not rotate, and the rotating lens was sent to a new lighthouse called Sand Hills Lighthouse, which was at Ahmeek, Michigan, and, by the way, the lens would be used at Sand Hills Lighthouse till 1921, when another lens would be installed at the lighthouse. In March 1935, Paul Klebba (the head lighthouse keeper) and Louis Hudak (the assistant lighthouse keeper) at Forty Mile Point Lighthouse were ordered to paint three sides of the tower (the west side, the north side, and the east side) completely white, and that is how the tower is today. Incidentally, in 1913, the head lighthouse keeper (John E. Smith) and the assistant keeper (Xavier Rains) set up a flag pole on the lantern-room level.
Today, a small number of photographs exist of Forty Mile Point Lighthouse from 1896 to the 1950s. A few show the lighthouse between 1896 and 1913, and a few show the lighthouse between 1935 and 1950s. There are no known photographs of the lighthouse that were taken between May 1914 and March 1935.
For a number of years before 2017, I wanted to make a model of the lighthouse for a friend, and I wanted the lighthouse to be tough enough to be outside and have a blinking light. In 2017, I began to make a model, and I wanted the model to show the real lighthouse as it was from June 1914 to at least May 1919, and for that period, the inside of the lantern room was white. In 1919, the inside of the lantern room was given a different paint scheme, so officially, I was going to make a model that covered the years of the lighthouse from 1914 to 1919, but it can be said that the lighthouse looks like the real lighthouse did from June 1914 and March 1935 (if you forget about the inside of the lantern room). In 2017, some copies of real drawings used to make the lighthouse existed, and I had copies, but in 2017, I measured as much of the lighthouse as I could, using, for instance, a painter's expandable pole (with a bent nail at the top end). Once I had measurements, I drew up drawings for the model, and the scale was one-quarter inch to one foot (and over the next three years, I would end up with some forty sheets of drawings done on brown grocery-bag paper). In 2017, I already had documents that I had written about the lighthouse, the light station, and the pilot house for The Calcite (which, today, is on display at Forty Mile Point Lighthouse Park and which was on a freighter of the Great Lakes from 1912 to 1960), and I had made the documents after having seen, for example, many old newspaper articles, all the light station journals from 1897 to 1943, and many of the logs from 1943 to 1968, and I had photographs of the lighthouse from 1896 to 2017, though not many were from 1896 to 1950. Because I was spending time at two residences in Michigan between the summer of 2017 and September 2020--going back and forth throughout the year or even every month or whatever--I did not and could not work on the model steadily, such as every day. In March 2020, the lighthouse was basically finished, but I had yet to do a little touch-up work, and then the COVID-19 thing hit, and, in essence, I was stuck up north in Michigan for weeks and weeks (far from the location of the model). In early September 2020, I finally made a special carrying case for the model and took the model up north--not too far from the real lighthouse. I have a bunch of good photographs of the model now (but I have plans to take more), and I have made new documents tied to photographs, such as one-page documents that show the model and offer history in text, which I can tape up at places, and, by the way, I do have a bunch of photographs that were taken from time to time that show the model of the lighthouse under construction. Here is one photograph of the model on sand for the beach-area house where I live for a portion of the year--near the edge of the water of Lake Huron.
Warning announcement! Because of incidents at schools for children and incidents at other places for people in general tied to "Sharia" or "Islamic Law" or even the religion/political system known as "Islam," I now regularly have this paragraph as a part of each edition of Michigan Travel Tips. The governmental system of the United States of America based on The U.S. Constitution and "Sharia" or, informally, Islamic law, are not compatible and cannot co-exist, and one reason is "Sharia" (et cetera) is a political system, in which there is one-party rule, and that one party is basically made up or controlled by religious leaders who base all the ways of their culture or society on "Sharia" or "Islamic Law." Those who uphold and practice "Sharia" have no tolerance for the existence of Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism or non-religion, and that is a fact, and "Sharia" is a political system in which women are second-rate human bodies and in which clergy can be involved in determining business transactions, and there is no "freedom of speech" tied to politics in a society related to "Sharia." When you travel around Michigan and in other states of the country, watch for signs that rotten people are trying to teach you or family members, especially children, that "Sharia" is good and "Allah" is good and teach you or family members that the United States of America is bad and that, for instance, Christianity and Buddhism and Hinduism are bad, which I have evidence is happening and which is being brought about by people who are clearly working to make "Sharia" a dominant political system in the world (it is a political system as rotten as socialism and fascism and communism are, since it promotes violence and thuggery and coercion, and it promotes killing of non-followers behind the face of religion and a god, Allah). By the way, a society based on "Sharia" really creates nothing in the long run and does not advance the human society as a whole since it is too busy suppressing the ideas of people and keeping that ideas of the society based on ways of only a few minds up front (the political leaders), whose main purpose is too keep themselves enriched through the work of others, the many--it is a gang-run society really. Yes, if you run across people pushing the idea that Muslim stuff--particularly the true The Quran and not the translations of The Quran that are faked to hide the true nature of Islam--is better than the U.S. is, especially to little children, go public and make it known to other good people and fight back against it.
I have given you a bit of history about Forty Mile Point Light Station, and now I shall give you history of the making of the model of the lighthouse so that you know what you have to know to make such a lighthouse. Around 1967, I had a drafting class at Cherry Hill High School, Inkster, Michigan, so by 2017, I had a bit of drafting experience, and, incidentally, my father had been a draftsman for the "Argonaut" unit (later called Plant Engineering) for General Motors Corporation, Detroit, Michigan, for many years. Around 2015, I bought a used Craftsman table saw for only $40.00, and the table saw was in good shape, though it is not a super-quality machine, and I got it on what might be called a fire sale (a person who owned it was ill and was leaving a nearby house), and the machine came with two blades, and I got the two blades sharpened (for $20.00). I already had a drill press (of about 1946 that is a somewhat historic piece), two scroll saws (electricity driven), two very big vises and some smaller vises, two oxy-acetylene welding units (a small-tanks unit and a big-tanks unit), a band saw, a router (with a table), solder irons, and a propane torch, and, of course, I had all types of small tools, such as screwdrivers, tweezers, hammers, steel rulers, squares, sheet-metal cutters, metal files, drills (with drill bits), socket sets, hand saws (tiny and regular sized), a Plexiglas cutter, and paint brushes. The walls of the lighthouse are made with Azek trim board (white), which I was able to cut well with the table saw and would have had a hard time cutting well without the table saw, and the walls are held together (from the inside) with angle aluminium parts (ninety-degree pieces that help square the structure) and stainless-steel screws. The window frames are made of aluminium sheet, and the window openings had to be filed out of the rough pieces for the windows, and there is a piece of Plexiglas behind each window-frame unit. The ridge beam is made of fairly thick brass strips, and the ridge beam (length-wise) was soldered together with the propane torch while the ridge-beam pieces were held in a wooden jig. The lantern room is made of copper (and has Plexiglas windows), and the railings are made of copper rod, and, incidentally, the lantern room (in rough form) was the first part of the lighthouse that I made since I thought it would be the hardest thing to make. To make the railings and the lantern room roof, I had to make holding jigs out of wood--jigs that could hold things, such a little copper triangles, in position for soldering. The base of the model is made of foundation-grade plywood that is covered with aluminium sheet, and the sheet in held in place with stainless-steel screws (which cannot be seen because they are hidden by a wood-frame unit (painted dark red) that is around the outside of the base and is not permanently attached to the base). There is a cut-out section in the plywood base (which is held in place with stainless-steel bolts and cannot be seen from above), and that cut-out section comes out from the bottom of the model and holds electronics (for a blinking LED that is in the lantern room), and the electronics are made up of, for instance, a capacitor, diodes, a "555" timing chip, wires, and two nine-volt batteries. On the underside of the base--at each side--there is a piece of ninety-degree angled steel, each of which has two nuts welded to it, and the nuts are for bolts that can hold the side handles in place so that the model can be moved easily. The paint colors of the roof, trim, and doors are paint colors that match the original colors of the real lighthouse, and the brick color is based on one piece of real brick from the making of the lighthouse, which, one day a few years ago, I had dug up at the base of the foundation for the tower while searching for history related to portable generators. I made a tiny wheelbarrow (out of copper) that looks like a wheelbarrow in a 1913 photograph of the back of the lighthouse, and I made a "settee" that is based on a settee shown in the 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalog (and the settee folds up as it does in the advertisement), and I made a ladder (like that which is shown in an early photograph of the lighthouse). To put down "static grass" material around the base or around the lighthouse, I made a static-grass applicator out of a small flour sifter and an electric fly swatter. And some of the things that I had to buy from a train store (like a toy store) were little men (railroad guys, whose hats I had to paint royal blue so that the guys might look like lighthouse keepers in work clothes), shovels, pales, buckets, flowers (plants), washboards, and axes. I have a Plexiglas case (or dust case) for the lighthouse that I made. Think of a glass aquarium that is not permanently held together. I can set it up or take it down in minutes. The sheets of Plexiglas are about twenty inches by twenty inches. Oh, I had to use a sewing machine to make two different sized deep-dark-red cloth-like things or throw-like things on which the lighthouse model could be placed (it was hem work). The base of the model is 17 inches and a half wide and 15 inches deep, and the lighthouse is 15 inches wide, 10 inches and a half deep, and about 17 inches tall (from the ground to the top of the flag pole).
[Note: I urge you to see Michigan Travel Tips #206 for something related to the model of the lighthouse, and Michigan Travel Tiips #206 can be reached through this Travel #206 link.]Now, I have to talk about Xavier Rains. Xavier Rains was the head lighthouse keeper at Forty Mile Point Light Station from 1897 to 1910. In 1911, he went to work at Mamajuda Rear Range Light Station (of the Detroit River). In 1912, he returned to Forty Mile Point Light Station, not liking the Detroit River place it seems. Xavier Rains was not demoted, but, in 1912, he could not displace the current keeper once he returned to Forty Mile Point Light Station, which would have been a demotion for the existing head lighthouse keeper. After retiring from the Lighthouse Service on January 7, 1921, he spent time at a home in the Detroit area of Michigan and a home near the lighthouse, at which he often showed up (such as from time to time to watch over the lighthouse while the current keeper and current assistant keeper went to Rogers City, such as to get supplies). In 1934, Xavier Rains was buried at Oakview Cemetery, Royal Oak (a suburb of Detroit), Michigan, now some couple hundred feet from Frentz and Sons Hardware, from which, for instance, I bought the quarter-inch Plexiglas sheets for the collapsible dust case for the model of the lighthouse. For years, driving along on North Main Street, Royal Oak, I was some couple hundred feet from Xavier Rains's grave stone and did not know it.
Enjoy your traveling in Michigan!
And keep aware of the rotten people in Michigan.
Stay well!
Victor
P.S. #1: Remember: While you travel in Michigan, remind your children or grandchildren that they should never pledge to be a "servant to Obama" or a servant to any politician or sing the praises of Barack Obama, and to help you remember other matters that you should teach children about bad politicians, such as Barack Obama (who can be described as an "enslave"), see such other documents of mine as Conservatism for Children and What Conservatism Means (which can be reached through this link: Conservatism) and Lessons for Children about Politics and Dangerous People (which can be reached through this link: Children). (Note: I first passed along the subject of not being a "servant to Obama" and the like in the publication entitled T.H.A.T. #58, which can be reached through this link: T.H.A.T. #58.)
P.S. #2: While you travel in Michigan, it is easy to come across evidence of rotten people or to meet rotten people. One really rotten man is Richard Bernstein, who is a new member to the Supreme Court for the State of Michigan. Evidence of his rottenness can be found in my document entitled Richard Bernstein--A Man Who Hopes You Are Blind to His Rottenness, which can be reached through this Bernstein link. Yet, on Monday, January 12, 2015, the Detroit Free Press did a story about Richard Bernstein to sell Richard Bernstein as something good, though he is not (Ahern, Louise Knott. "State's 1st blind justice aims to be inspiration." Detroit Free Press, 12 January 2014, p. 4A.). I report--I urge anyone who runs a business and loses a court case in which Richard Bernstein was one of the presiding judges to have the decision thrown out or killed through another case, since Richard Bernstein, while running to be elected to the Supreme Court of Michigan, made it clear that he was going to be biased against businesses if he were to be elected to the Supreme Court of Michigan, and that is a fact. Richard Bernstein is a rotten man!
Your travel tip in this edition of Michigan Travel Tips is:
Forty Mile Point Light Station of from 1914 to 1919, near Rogers City, Presque Isle County, the Lower Peninsula.
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File date: 10 October 2020 (original)
File Date: 8 November 2020 (revised)
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