Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Maumee Bay State Park will be the new host site for the 21st annual Toledo Lighthouse Festival on Sept. 13-14.
The event, which raises funds to restore the lighthouse and takes place near the park’s nature center, will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 13 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the following day. Parking is free, and a $5 donation for the lighthouse is requested.
The festival has amazing artists and crafters, as well as live music where you can sit and listen to the American Legion, Junkanoos, Kerry Patrick Clark, the Good The Bad Blues, Bob Wurst Band, Johnny Rodriguez, and more.
This year, there will be informational sessions at the Nature’s Center where the Toledo Lighthouse Fresnel lens is located.
Visitors can bid on the many items in the silent auction, have some food, get some Toledo Lighthouse merchandise, snap some pictures, and participate in children’s games.
A major goal of the festival is to raise funds to match a $25,000 grant from Cleveland Cliffs for a dock and lift to allow public access into the lighthouse.
The Toledo Lighthouse is 4,000 square feet in size of buff brick on a crib along the shipping channel in Lake Erie. It resides about five miles from the shores of Maumee Bay State Park.
Toledo’s Lighthouse stands out from other more traditional cylinder lighthouses like Marblehead and others. It was dedicated May 23, 1904, and was built because the Turtle Island Lighthouse, dedicated in 1831 and located about two miles from the Maumee River, failed because of massive ice sheets and high waves.
In fact, the Turtle Island Lighthouse toppled twice when it was decided to straighten the shipping channel and build the Toledo Lighthouse.
In the 1960s the lighthouse was no longer manned and there were plans to destroy it in the late 1980s. But lighthouse advocates saved the lighthouse and in 1989, the U.S. Coast Guard secured the lighthouse by placing cement block windows on the first floor and putting boulders around three of the four sides and a steel wall which is where access is on the fourth side.
The improvements changed access to the lighthouse from two sides to one side. There is an undercurrent which makes it dangerous for boats to leave people off to enter the lighthouse.
The Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Society was formed in 2004 to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Toledo Lighthouse. Since then, the organization has become a non-profit and has acquired ownership of the lighthouse and a lease for the Fresnel lens.
The organization has received grants and support amounting to over $1 million, which has allowed new windows and shutters on the first and second floors, as well as the brick tucking and restoration of two of the entry doors. Additional restoration is estimated at a cost of $2.5 million.
Once the lighthouse is restored, four people will become temporary keepers, and welcome boaters and the public from spring to fall. The Toledo Lighthouse Society has nearly 500 members who, through their membership, will get rights to become the first keepers.
The plan is to make the Toledo Lighthouse a leading Ohio tourism destination similar to Marblehead.
For more information on the Toledo Lighthouse Festival visit ToledoLightHouseFestival.org or email Sandy Bihn at sandylakeerie@aol.com.
