By Rob Alway
This is part 2 of a three-part Great Lakes Boat Blog series examining Kewaunee, Wisconsin, its railroad carferry port, historic lighthouse and World War II-era tugboat.
KEWAUNEE, Wisconsin — The Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse has stood watch over a Lake Michigan harbor that once served some of the busiest railroad carferry routes on the Great Lakes. Its distinctive square tower is also a reminder of an unusual event in that history: a carferry collision that forced the federal government to rebuild part of the light station.
The lighthouse, situated on the harbor’s south pier, was completed in 1912. But Kewaunee’s navigational lights predated that structure, and their development reflected the growing importance of the Wisconsin port to the railroads and Great Lakes shipping.
Early navigation aids
As the Kewaunee River was dredged and its mouth shifted to create a more protected harbor, pier construction gave ships a defined entrance from Lake Michigan. Federal piers built during the early 1880s were followed by a wooden lighthouse on the north pier in 1889.
The railroad reached Kewaunee in 1891, giving the harbor a direct connection to the rail network extending west from Green Bay, Wisconsin. The following year, the wooden-hulled Ann Arbor No. 1 began carrying loaded railroad cars between the Michigan and Wisconsin shores, establishing a form of transportation that would define the harbor for nearly a century.
As the harbor developed, its lights, range markers and fog signals changed to meet the needs of mariners. A fog-signal building was constructed near the north-pier light in the 1890s, and the station was repeatedly modified as the piers were lengthened.
A new station on the south pier
Work on a reinforced-concrete south pier began in 1910. The government then built a new light station, with a fog-signal building and a 45-foot open-frame tower. The new light was first exhibited March 26, 1912, using a fifth-order Fresnel lens.
An elevated walkway allowed lightkeepers to reach the structure above waves breaking over the pier. A compressed-air whistle provided an audible warning to vessels approaching the harbor in fog.
By 1919, electricity had reached the lighthouse. Electric power replaced the original oil lamp and helped operate the fog-signal machinery. A diaphone horn, whose powerful blast ended with a distinctive grunt, replaced the earlier whistle.
The 1930 collision
In November 1930, the railroad carferry Ann Arbor No. 3 struck the end of the south pier, badly damaging the pier and twisting one of the light tower’s support legs. The collision also damaged the lighthouse structure.
Repairs changed the landmark’s appearance. The damaged open-frame tower was removed, and a new square tower was built into the lakeward end of the fog-signal building. That reconstruction gave the Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse the silhouette that remains familiar to visitors.
The story of the original tower did not end in Kewaunee. It was shipped to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for repair in 1932 and later installed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1938 as the Chicago Harbor Southeast Guidewall Lighthouse, according to the Friends of the Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse.
For decades afterward, the rebuilt Kewaunee light guided vessels serving the Ann Arbor, Pere Marquette and Chesapeake and Ohio railroad carferry fleets, along with other commercial traffic using the harbor.
Automation and preservation
The lighthouse remained an important aid to navigation even as the carferry industry declined. It was automated in 1981, ending the need for personnel to operate the light station and its fog-signal equipment on site. Much of the former machinery was removed as the structure’s role changed.
Railroad carferry service at Kewaunee ended in November 1990, when Badger completed the final crossings of that long-running transportation era. The ferry later returned to passenger and vehicle service between Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, rather than Kewaunee.
The city of Kewaunee acquired the lighthouse in 2011 through a federal historic lighthouse preservation program. In 2022, the pierhead lighthouse and pier were added to the state and national registers of historic places.
Working with the city, the nonprofit Friends of the Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse and other supporters have undertaken restoration work to preserve the structure and interpret its history.
What was once a practical guide for carferries entering the harbor has become one of Kewaunee’s most recognizable maritime landmarks. Its history also reflects how the port evolved from a busy railroad gateway into a community preserving the visible remains of its shipping heritage.
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This story is copyrighted 2026 by Sable Points Media.