The Marblehead Lighthouse

Poor Denny-for yesterday's sightseeing trip I was able to combine a lighthouse with geocaching. He geocaches with me simply to humor me, because a bored Linda is not a fun Linda. The funny part is, is that he's very good at finding the hidden caches which is better for me at the moment since my knee isn't up to scrambling over rough boulders at the moment.

Marblehead, Ohio is a short drive from Port Clinton traveling on Ohio 163. It's a small town, but you could keep yourself occupied for a few hours visiting the Johnson Island prison museum (we passed on that this day) and the small shops in town. There are several restaurants and Brown's Dairy Dock makes an excellent raspberry shake and chocolate malt. (Yeah, yeah, we're supposed to be dieting.)

The Marblehead lighthouse was built around 1819. Its base is 25 feet in diameter and the interior walls at 5 feet thick at the base. Originally the lighthouse was 50 feet tall but another 15 feet was added to it much later. When built, the beacon consisted of 13 whale oil lamps that had to be lit each night. In 1858 these were replaced by a single kerosene lantern whose light was amplified by a Fresnel lens. The next improvement was the addition of a clock-like mechanism that rotated the lantern to create the appearance of a flashing light. The mechanism had to be wound every three hours during the night to insure the lantern continued to turn.

In 1923 the kerosene lantern was replaced with an electric light and eventually the Coast Guard assumed responsibility for the maintenance and operation of the lighthouse. The Marblehead lighthouse is the oldest continually operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes and you can tour the lighthouse itself, as well as the keeper's house on the grounds, from 1-5 PM daily. Take a picnic lunch, find a seat on the boulders on the shore and enjoy the view of Lake Erie and the Cedar Point Amusement Park in the distance. It's a nice way to spend the afternoon.