Split Rock Lighthouse 2007

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If you get a chance to visit a lighthouse, I strongly recommend it.  This year we decided to stop by the Split Rock Lighthouse.  Although the light still functions, it is for show only.  Most modern shipboard navigation involves the use of radar and GPS systems and has made the use of lighthouses virtually obsolete.



With the exception of the steam lift, tram, and one of the lighthouse keepers garages, most of the buildings and support facilities remain.  Above is the building that housed the steam engine for the fog horns, and the two pictures to the right are of the lighthouse keeper and his assistants' homes.



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I mentioned a tram before and above is what remains of it today.  In the early days, the keepers would have to haul up supplies from the bay below the lighthouse.  Over time, a tram system was constructed that helped  them in this process.  The building in the first picture housed the equipment to hall the cars up the track.  The second picture is the view down the path to the bay, and the last is looking back up.



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Here is another picture of the tram building.  The second picture is of the lighthouse from the bay below.



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The main reason for the development of the lighthouses was to prevent or cut down the number of shipwrecks due to low visibility of the rocky shores.  One example of this is in the first picture in the second row above.  There are marker buoys in the picture that show where a ship went down in a storm.  Of course there is one questions that I have not answered and that is, how did they get the building materials to the site in order to build the lighthouse? Well, it wasn't by the long path just west of the lighthouse.  It was up the side of this cliff, in the first picture, by the use of a steam engine and lift.   For many years, this was the only method to get to the lighthouse.  As for getting the engine to the top, the construction workers build a sled, put the engine on it, and it pulled itself up the long slope from the bay to the west.