MONROE — His hometown hasn’t had a lighthouse in exactly 100 years.
But the tales his grandmother told him about the long-gone “Monroe Piers” attractions extending into the harbor along with that last beacon sparked a life-long fascination with lighthouses for Michael Huggins. Mr. Huggins, the general manager of Roselawn Cemetery in LaSalle, who can see his grandmother’s gravestone by looking out his office window, has been to 68 and counting.
The Monroe Harbor Lighthouse was once nestled into a coastal area that boasted a pristine beach; a casino with a dance floor and roller skating; a roller coaster and carousel, and a resort hotel. Steamboats carrying tourists, pleasure craft, and ships weighted down with goods all were guided into the harbor by that lighthouse.
Mr. Huggins recalled being captivated as a young boy by the stories of that long-ago, romantic time.
“Grandma told me these stories of what Monroe used to be like,” said Mr. Huggins, 59, adding that some were stories handed down to her from his great-grandparents. “She was telling old Monroe stories until she died three months shy of 90. The more she told me, the more I wanted to know. I started to research the three lighthouses Monroe had.”
Janet Tressler, who died in 2010, also prompted a broader love of history and touring lighthouses in her grandson.
His family vacations with lighthouses as destination points have been going strong for three decades. Nancy, his wife of 38 years, and their children, Katherine, 30, and James, 18, enjoy the quests.
“It’s fun for us, too,” Nancy Huggins said. “I’m always ready to go to any lighthouse we can see.”
“Grandma J’s” love of lighthouses and history have now made it to another generation.
Mr. Huggins said they’ve visited 47 of the 124 in Michigan, which has more lighthouses than any other state. The Canadian province of Ontario is next for the family with 12 lighthouse visits, followed by treks to see 8 of 21 in Ohio, and the Grosse Point Lighthouse in Evanston, Ill.
“I consider Marblehead to be our family lighthouse because we have visited over 100 times in the last 30 years,” said Mr. Huggins, a charter member of the Marblehead Lighthouse Historical Society.
Ms. Huggins said, “I just love it. It’s so picturesque, and such a calming place. We like to go there, sit on the rocks and watch the boats. When our son was maybe not even 1 month old and in his car seat, we have a picture of him there at the lighthouse.”
She laughed, recalling that.
Mr. Huggins noted that the Marblehead Lighthouse celebrated its 200th anniversary this year before adding: “This all started with Marblehead. I saw it from a charter fishing boat. I asked, ‘WHAT is this?’ I’d never seen it before, and it looked like we were in Maine or something.
“My daughter is 30, and I remember taking her there as a baby,” he continued. “James has been going to Marblehead since he could walk. Now we go three or four times a summer, and it’s one of our favorite outings. We stop for perch dinners at the Jolly Roger in Port Clinton.”
He’s also a life member of the Monroe County Historical Society, has been on the board of directors for 20 years, and is currently the organization’s first vice president.
His hometown hasn’t had a lighthouse in 100 years, despite having a thriving shipping channel. That makes it extremely rare for a Great Lakes port city.
Mr. Huggins has researched the three lighthouses that once served as Monroe beacons for freelance newspaper and magazine articles, and explained why — unlike Ohio cities such as Port Clinton, Huron, and Vermilion — Monroe lost and never rebuilt or replaced its lighthouse.
“It’s because we never got a chance,” said Mr. Huggins, a graduate of Monroe High and Monroe Community College. “The federal government decided it no longer needed one here. It automated the lighthouse in 1916, and so it did not need a keeper any more. In the 1920s, they decided not to finance it. Someone from Toledo offered $35 to tear it down [in 1922], and took away the lumber in a floating barge.
“The skeletal gas light tower that replaced it remained until the 1950s. The lighted coal docks at Detroit Edison's Monroe power plant then became the guiding light into the Port of Monroe. That area became Detroit Edison property and they improved that area. Their lighting on the property is what freighters use to come into the channel, and everything is GPS these days.”
The first Monroe lighthouse was completed in 1829 and known as the Otter Creek Lighthouse or LaPlaisance Bay Lighthouse. Mr. Huggins said one built to the same specifications, the Barcelona Lighthouse constructed of stone, still stands off Lake Erie in Westfield, N.Y.
After a canal was completed in 1843, Monroe’s harbor shifted about 4 miles to the north at the new mouth of the River Raisin, necessitating a lighthouse in that location. The first Monroe Harbor Lighthouse was completed in 1849, and the original LaPlaisance Bay Lighthouse was decommissioned. It was sold in 1870 for $10 to a farmer, John Jacob Luft, who used its limestone as a foundation for his house and other buildings. Mr. Huggins said Lighthouse Road off LaPlaisance Road was near its location along Avalon Beach. He said limestone that wasn’t excavated from it remains visible at low tides with the wind blowing in the right direction.
That new wood lighthouse in the harbor proved difficult to maintain, rotted, and was completely destroyed in the mid-1880s.
Monroe’s third and final lighthouse — enclosed by concrete and built with a keeper’s four-gabled house surrounding it — was constructed in 1884. And 38 years later, it was sold for repurposing its materials.
The 1,000-foot wooden pier is gone, too, but a few wooden pilings and a long row of rocks can be seen when the water is low, according to Mr. Huggins.
“The Piers” became history, too.
“It was a resort town and hundreds of people came here every day by steamship,” Mr. Huggins said. “It’s crazy to think all of that is gone.”
He said the resort and casino closed with the Great Depression of 1929 and never reopened, adding, “And now there’s really no need for building another lighthouse.”
And, so, he visits lighthouses that have survived unlike Monroe’s.
“We’ve been up and down both coasts of Michigan and the U.P.,” Mr. Huggins said. “There are so many photographs, so many good times.”
Kincardine Lighthouse in Tobermory, Ontario, Canada is a favorite.
“We’ve visited it a half dozen times in this little fishing village,” Mr. Huggins said. “It’s on one of the most beautiful spots in the world, the Bruce Peninsula, and is a beautiful lighthouse.”
His wife added, “At sunset at Kincardine, the piper will go up there and play his bagpipes. That’s neat.”
Tawas Point Lighthouse in East Tawas, Mich., which is due west of Kincardine across Lake Huron, is another he likes along with the nearby Sturgeon Point Lighthouse in Harrisville.
“It has just the most beautiful rocks that you ever saw,” Mr. Huggins said. “It’s small and very classic with a brick tower and a brick house attached to it. It’s only open for special appointments. And the setting there is absolutely amazing with that beach. My son picked up so may rocks there that his pants nearly fell off.”
He chuckled.
“Then there’s Point Betsie [Lighthouse] on the other side of the state,” Mr. Huggins said of the Lake Michigan beacon in Frankfort. “We were there two years ago in February for a cemetery conference. It’s one of the few still manned by the [U.S.] Coast Guard. It’s just the way it sets up on the point, and it still has its original Fresnel lens — a big lead crystal lens. The beach there is awesome, too. You can find Petoskey stones there.”
Lake Superior’s Whitefish Point Lighthouse in Paradise, Mich., is a skeletal metal beacon with a tie to history.
“It’s what the [SS] Edmund Fitzgerald was trying to get to when it sank [in 1975],” Mr. Huggins said. The lighthouse is now part of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum complex, which features the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Not far from there is another lighthouse that is linked to one of America’s finest authors.
Mr. Huggins said: “There’s a story about Ernest Hemingway and where he used to go trout fishing in the Two Hearted River in the U.P., which flows into Lake Superior just west of Crisp Point Lighthouse. It made it into one of his stories.”
That was a two-part short story, “Big Two-Hearted River,” featuring Nick Adams, the recurrent Hemingway autobiographical character.
History leads him to lighthouses. Or is it lighthouses that lead him to history?
It’s hard to tell. But one thing’s for sure. “Grandma T,” as he refers to her for others, would be proud of all the places her stories took her grandson, and now her great-grandchildren, by fostering his insatiable curiosity about history and lighthouses.
First Published October 23, 2022, 12:00 p.m.
