Picture of the Day for July 20, 2014

The light from the Raspberry Island Lighthouse tower’s fifth-order, fixed lens was exhibited for the first time on July 20, 1863, shining its beacon on the Lake Superior waters in the Apostle Islands.

When built in 1862, Raspberry Island Lighthouse was a two-story, rectangular dwelling with a square tower rising from the center of its pitched roof for the single lighthouse keeper and his family.

As the workload increased with the addition of a fog horn, the old lighthouse was greatly expanded in 1906 and converted into a double dwelling with room for two families and an unmarried assistant. The head keeper occupied the first and second stories on the south side of the lighthouse, what was essentially a three-bedroom dwelling, while the first assistant had the ground floor on the north side and the second assistant three rooms in the upper floor.

Raspberry Island Lighthouse

Raspberry Island Lighthouse

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