Eagle Harbor Lighthouse and Museums

Dr. Ching-Kuang Shene, Michigan Technological University

This exceptionally picturesque and much photographed brick lighthouse surveys the harbor from its rocky perch. Built in 1871, the keeper's dwelling is realistically furnished as it might have been in the 1930s by the Keweenaw County Historical Society. The society has purchased the light station complex here from the Coast Guard. It has developed several specialized museums in its various buildings. In 1999 a small commercial fishing museum was created in the assistant keeper's quarters next door.
One building by the parking area houses the history museum: including surveying, smelting, and mining. It includes a mineral collection, mining history, material on Daniel Brockway and the early days of Copper Harbor, and a fine exhibit on the Keweenaw's prehistoric copper culture. There's a 1910 auto which was driven across winter ice off this coast when the ship carrying it became stuck in the ice.

A separate maritime museum building covers shipwrecks in great detail. A patient, history-minded person could spend hours on a rainy day taking this all in. Many exhibits have signs that are dense reading, too much for casual visitors. But the museum is the best single place in the Keweenaw to assemble an overview of the area's history.

Outside are picnic tables on a sunny, rocky promontory. An overlook platform has a grand view of the rocks and, looking out into Lake Superior, of passing freighters as well.

The Keweenaw Historical Society's maritime museum displays the kind of survival suit sailors on Lake Superior freighters are required to have on hand. Fall into Superior without one in late fall or early spring, your chances of survival are low.

At the west shore of the harbor. Follow signs from M-26 to lighthouse/museum. Summer phone: (906) 289-4990. Open daily, mid-June thru Sept, noon-5, in July & August open 10-5, but noon on
Sunday. $4/person. Lighthouse is not handicap-accessible. Mining and maritime museums are. 289 4607

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