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0000017c-60f7-de77-ad7e-f3f739cf0000Arts & More airs Fridays at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.Theme music: "Like A Beginner Again" by Dan Barry of Seas of Jupiter

Inside the $300,000 Effort to Save the South Haven Lighthouse

Robbie Feinberg

In the peak of summer, South Haven’s 37-foot ruby-red lighthouse looks downright stoic, overlooking Lake Michigan from its perch at the end of the city's pier. It's a visage that's become a symbol of the town, leading to an ambitious crowd-funding campaign to save it.

But on a freezing-cold winter afternoon, the landmark doesn’t quite live up to that image. Sheets of ice drape the lighthouse, creating a translucent shell that mutes its stark colors.

South Haven native Roger Horton leads me towards the building. We want to go inside, but walking along the icy pier is a little rough.

"Now, they warned us as kids not to venture out on to that ice," Horton says. "Cause you never know when you might fall through!"

While it may not be in peak form right now, the lighthouse is nonetheless a symbol for South Haven. It’s sat here for nearly a century and a half.

“There was one famous lighthouse keeper named Captain Donahue," Horton tells me. "He was a Civil War veteran. And as a reward for his service after losing a leg in the Civil War, the government awarded him keeper of the lighthouse. The poor guy had to come out here, on this catwalk, in all kinds of weather, two or three or four times a day, to keep the light lit!”

His biggest accolade, though, was plunging into the Lake Michigan waters below him and saving the lives of fifteen people. For that, the federal government gave him a silver medal. But South Haven residents respected him so much that they weren’t satisfied with just silver. So they made him his own medal. And it was gold.

Credit Courtesy Historical Association of South Haven
The corroded stairs of the South Haven lighthouse

  Since Captain Donahue’s days, the lighthouse has transformed into a symbol of South Haven, and a place of pride for its residents who survive both the tourist-filled summers and whipping cold winters. One of those is Ed Appleyard, who’s on the board of the Historical Asssociation of South Haven.

“Well, probably the thing I remember the most about it was the old foghorn that was on the lighthouse," Appleyard says. "I lived probably a mile and a half from the lakeshore and I could remember falling asleep at night to the sound of the foghorn. It has a very distinct sound that goes kind of beeeee-o.”

The lighthouse, Appleyard says, has become integral to South Haven’s history.

"So it appears on the newspaper's masthead. It appears on the city's manhole covers," Appleyard explains. "All throughout the town there are businesses that have replicas or pictures of it or something to do with it on their signage, so there's been a lot of interest that way.”

But Appleyard says the condition of the lighthouse doesn’t quite live up to its rich history anymore. The Coast Guard owned the lighthouse for decades. But new technology made it obsolete, and it was declared “surplus” and sold in 2012. When the Historical Association took it over, they found that decades of neglect hadn’t been kind. Corroding windows, doors, floors. It’s so bad in one place, they say, the corrosion has nearly burned a hole in  part of the floor.

If you head out in winter to look at the damage, though, it's nearly impossible. The door is covered in a sheet of ice so thick you’d likely need a jackhammer to remove it.

This is what it’s like most years,  the historical association says. Impossible to get inside during the winter or perform maintenance. The damage adds up. Now, the Historical Association of South Haven hopes to raise nearly three-hundred thousand dollars to get it back in decent condition.

To get that money, the historical association is looking for grants and doing a typical fundraiser, with poetry and music. But, it’s also simply asking the public if they can give a few dollars. It’s a lot of money, but Appleyard has faith it will work.

Credit Courtesy Historical Association of South Haven
More corrosion at the light house

“When we've been down there doing touch ups on it, painting, hundreds and hundreds of people come by in an hour or two's time to just take a picture in front of it to just walk around it," he says. "I'm fully convinced that there's enough people that will show. And if it's only a couple dollars a piece, over time, we'll get that.”

The goal is still a long way off. The historical association has onlycollected a few thousand dollars so far in its campaign, but the group will be working through the summer. And even if they can’t make all of their ambitious goal, Appleyard is confident he can restore it back to how it looked when Jack Donahue called it home.

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