Lighthouses to illuminate Champlain's shore



By Andy Netzel
Friday, September 12, 2003

Attractive blips on the waterscape, the two new lighthouses in Burlington Harbor will be lighted for the first time today.

Workers removed their tools and made the final adjustments on the new buildings Thursday afternoon, said contractor Larry Paul of Atlantic Mechanical.

"Our guys are pretty much done," he said. "They're just cleaning up the site. They're loading up our trucks to bring the tools and equipment home."

The two lighthouses in place on the jetty are replicas of former beacons. The northern lighthouse is modeled after one built in 1890; the southern lighthouse favors one built in 1857.

Lighthouse historians are giddy about today's lighting -- the first time a lighthouse has been built from scratch in at least 50 years, said to Tim Harrison, president of the American Lighthouse Foundation in Wells, Maine.

Today when light is needed on shores, contemporary metal posts with lights often illuminate the shoreline, with lower maintenance costs, Paul said.

Art Cohn, executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, said the rotating lights will serve as a reminder of a different kind of Burlington.

"The lake we look on today is vastly different," Cohn said. "It's primarily a recreational body valued for its beauty and the lifestyle it gives us."

Since 1823, when the Champlain Canal was constructed, the lake served as a major water route. The lighthouses were built at that time on the then-900 foot breakwater. The breakwater is now 6,000 feet, Cohn said.

The look of the new lighthouses was pieced together from photographs, newspaper articles and historical records, Cohn said. Their designs were chosen because they had the most complete records and were the most attractive.

The lighthouses have beenmodified from the original design, Paul said. The former lighthouses were routinely knocked over and crushed by ice sheets on Lake Champlain. The new ones have replaceable wooden panels and the new frames are more durable.

The funds to build the lighthouses were a detail in a larger federal funding bill passed last year.