Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival Photo Album

05/17/05 6:03 PM

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Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival Photo Album

Grand Opening of Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival Museum

This year’s Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival held in Alpena, Michigan was also the grand opening of the Festival’s new museum.

The building itself was actually the old Alpena Township Hall that was mothballed way back in 1962. The abandoned structure had been scheduled for demolition. When Festival volunteer Bruce Thomson heard about the planned demolition, plans were immediately undertaken to move the building to the Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival site.

The opening of this year’s festival was also the grand opening of the museum, which only has a few artifacts to date. The building will also serve as offices for the Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival and serve as a location for the accumulation of lighthouse donations that are used for the annual auction held each year in conjunction with the festival.

The new museum also boasts a 36-foot range light tower from Presque Isle, Michigan that was discarded by the Coast Guard and salvaged out of a field, and a buoy marker that was donated by the Coast Guard. The lighthouse replica in front of the museum was just installed a day before the grand opening.

Bill and Nancy Younger - Guests of Honor at GLLF

Bill and Nancy Younger, founders of the award-winning Harbour Lights collectibles, were on hand at the recent Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival. Bill was the speaker at Saturday night’s Keepers Dinner where he spoke about the founding of Harbour Lights and the role they play in helping to preserve our lighthouse history, and more importantly why it is vital to get the younger generations involved in preservation now. Bill talked about how he enjoys speaking to school groups, because it is the younger generation we need to teach about preservation. Although he said he might be preaching to the choir in this room, he said he would like to see everyone start sharing history with children, especially the younger ones. He also stressed how we should not expect the government to save our lighthouses. What we need is involvement by the people. He went on to say how getting involved is fun and that being involved with saving lighthouses and history is the greatest experience of his life.

Nancy Younger ended the evening’s festivities by presenting all dinner attendees with a Harbour Lights Christmas ornament.

This story appeared in the December 2000 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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