Life on the Islands

In 1849, newly appointed light keeper William Riggins moved into a brand new lighthouse on Plum Island with his wife and 3 children. 

William Riggins served on Plum Island for 8 years, departing the station just one year before its closure.

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The light apparatus consisted of a series of ten  oil lamps with a 10" diameter mirrored reflector set behind each lamp. The reflectors directed light that would normally be lost to the rear of the lamp out towards the water.

Those lamps and reflectors were arranged in a semi-circle so the resulting light beam shines out towards the lake. 

This was an incredibly labor-intensive task as the keeper needed to keep all ten oil lamps burning cleanly and brightly at once. During the day, the entire lantern room needed to be cleaned of soot.  The silvered reflectors were to be polished so to make best use of all available light.

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At the time of the construction of the Plum Island Lighthouse in 1849, the only other lighthouse in the region was the Pottawatomie Lighthouse on nearby Rock Island - 10 miles to the Northeast "as the crow flies." 

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Wisconsin had achieved statehood only one year prior, and what would become the city of Sturgeon Bay was nothing but untamed woodland and marsh, with a couple of log cabins along the shore. 

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The US Government was still quite young as well, and money was tight. In these early days of US Lighthouses, little professional thought was put into the exact location of lighthouses, and there was a massive lack of oversight on construction on top of it.

The results spoke for themselves: poorly located, sometimes useless lighthouses that were literally falling apart.

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The light on Plum Island was quickly found to be located too far west in order to help ships into Death's Door Passage. A light would be better suited on tiny Pilot Island, further out into Lake Michigan.

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In 1855 William's son, Royal Riggins, was appointed Assistant Keeper under his father. 

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In 1857, William Riggins moved off Plum Island, replaced by William Shurtleff. Royal Riggins remained on Plum Island as Assistant Keeper.

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In response to the poor location and poor construction of the 1849 lighthouse on Plum Island, a new lighthouse was built on Pilot Island in 1858. With the new lighthouse complete, William Shurtleff and Royal Riggins were transferred to the new station, and the Plum Island lighthouse was abandoned to nature.

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In the first series of Lake Survey charts in 1864 - just 6 years after abandonment, the old lighthouse was already described as "ruins."

By the time humans returned to Plum Island less than 40 years later, all that was left of the old, stone lighthouse were a couple walls and a depression where the cellar was.

When the ruins were rediscovered in the early 2000s, they were unrecognizable.

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The 1848 construction contract describes a lighthouse nearly identical to the Old Point Loma lighthouse in California (photo)

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When an archeological dig was conducted on the ruins in ____, it was found the lighthouse was actually built far smaller than the contract specified and was missing key features that were promised, such as the fully excavated basement.

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When the Lighthouse Establishment was replaced with the Lighthouse Board in 1852, engineers and ship captains were given a louder voice in lighthouse site selection.

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Standards for construction were strictly enforced as well. Work not completed to proper standard was rejected by Lighthouse Service inspectors and expected to be redone. ​​

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After the sweeping administrative changes of 1852, many of the poorly-built lighthouses were rebuilt. The 1836 Pottawatomie Lighthouse on nearby Rock Island was also rebuilt in 1858, as it had been poorly constructed.