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When I woke up this morning I thought it was Sunday, but actually, it’s National Lighthouse Day! Yes, this event occurs every year on August 7. That’s the day when many lighthouses will be open to the public. So, if you didn’t make big plans this year, you have an entire year to get ready for National Lighthouse Day 2023. Since I didn’t make big plans this year, I decided to dig through some of my photos.

You’d think that, having spent much of my life in Wisconsin, I’d have pictures of scores of lighthouses from America’s Dairyland. Sadly, that’s not the case. But, in addition to the image above of the Pottawatomie Lighthouse in Rock Island State Park, I do have pictures of the Windpoint Lighthouse in Racine, the Eagle Lighthouse in Peninsula State Park, and the Cana Island Lighthouse in Bailey’s Harbor.

(In the galleries below, you can hover over each image to see the name. You can also click on an image to enlarge it.)

You’d think that, having spent twenty-five years of my life in Oregon, I’d have pictures of scores of lighthouses from the Beaver State. Sadly, that’s not the case. I should point out that most of my photos from Oregon exist in the form of Kodachrome slides. Although some have been scanned, the majority are still hidden in metal boxes waiting their turn. At least I can show the Yaquina Head and Cape Meares Lighthouses from Oregon along with a small lighthouse I photographed from a ferry near Anacortes, WA. The Cape Meares Lighthouse is not very tall, but you don’t need much height when you sit on top of a tall rocky bluff. In fact, at 38 feet, Cape Meares is the shortest light in Oregon, but it sits 217 feet above sea level.

There’s one place we visited several times specifically to see lighthouses. That was Cape Hatteras National Seashore. There you can see the tall and beautiful Cape Hatteras Lighthouse (208 feet). To help you visualize it’s height, I’ve included a picture with a 5-year old Eric and a 3-year old Matthew for scale. Farther north you can find the shorter but still impressive Bodie Island Lighthouse (156 feet). The much smaller Ocracoke Lighthouse is on Ocracoke Island. It’s purpose was to guide ships though the nearby Ocracoke Inlet, so height was not an important factor.

Although I haven’t toured Michigan very often, most of the lighthouse photos I found were from that state. I suspect it’s because my trips to the UP and the LP (do they call it that?) were fairly recent, making the photos easier to find. The lights below are the Ontanogan Lighthouse, the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, the Sand Point Lighthouse, and the Munising Front Range Light.

If you take the scenic cruise in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which leaves from Munising, you’ll go right past the great old wooden Grand Island East Channel Lighthouse. While you’re in Munising, you might as well also visit the Grand Island Harbor Rear Range Light. If you decide to cross the Mackinac Bridge and head south along the Lake Michigan shore in Michigan, you can stop at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse in Northport, MI, and the Point Betsie Lighthouse in Frankfort, MI.

The last time we visited those places we decided to catch the SS Badger in Ludington, MI for our return to Wisconsin. We reached Ludington during quite a storm. Fortunately, when we caught the ferry the next morning the lake was nice and calm. You can see the difference in the weather by looking at the two images of the Ludington Light, a 57-foot tall steel-plated lighthouse sitting at the end of the breakwater on Pere Marquette Harbor.

I have to finish this now because, if it takes me much longer, it will no longer be National Lighthouse Day. I hope you had a good one and that someone will always leave the light on for you.