| Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station | |
| Location: | Racine, Wisconsin |
| Refnum: | 75000077 |
| Added: | September 9, 1975 |
The Racine Harbor Lighthouse and Life Saving Station is a complex of navigation aids begun by the U.S. government in the 1860s near the harbor of Racine, Wisconsin. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[1] [2]
To guide ships into Racine's harbor, the federal government in 1837 built the first lighthouse at the mouth of the Root River, with a light on a 34feet tower and a lightkeeper's house. Those structures no longer exist.[3]
In the early 1860s the pier was extended, and a new lighthouse and keeper's quarters were begun on a rock-filled crib 200feet offshore. They were completed in 1866 and served for 40 years. In 1903 the light was moved from the old lighthouse to a free-standing 120-foot steel tower, and the tower of the old lighthouse was capped with a hip roof.[4] [2]
The life-saving station was added in 1903, a 2-story building with a 3-story square, pyramidal-roofed lookout tower. Part of the station was a frame boathouse. A team from the Life-Saving Service lived in this station, and conducted search and rescue operations along the Milwaukee-Kenosha coast and 40miles out into Lake Michigan.[2]