Digest>Archives> September 2009

Lights of The Desert

By Colleen Miniuk-Sperry

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The replica of New Brunswick Canada's Head ...

When people think of Arizona, they typically think of the majestic Grand Canyon, the staggering red rocks of Sedona, the seemingly endless stands of saguaros, the stately lighthouses…

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At the Havasu Springs Marina, members of the Lake ...

Say what? Lighthouses? In Arizona?

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George Muldanado, a Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club ...

Yep, that’s right, lighthouses. In fact, a total of 16 lighthouses grace the shoreline of Lake Havasu. And there are at least seven more in the works right here in the middle of a landlocked desert – the last place I thought would ever need a lighthouse.

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George Muldanado, a Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club ...

Being a lighthouse fanatic living in Phoenix, I have been known to drive over 2000 miles to admire lighthouses along the West Coast. Did I really only need to drive 200 miles to see lighthouses? Curiosity takes a hold of me, so off to the “west coast” of Arizona I go to meet with the Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club members to find out.

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Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club members Ray Albert ...

When I arrive in Lake Havasu City, the president and co-founder of the Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club, Bob Keller, shares that he and members of the club plan to turn the Sandy Hook navigation light near the Havasu Springs Marina into a replica lighthouse today.

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The completed replica of New Jersey's Sandy Hook ...

On the drive to Havasu Springs Marina, Bob gives me a short history lesson where I learn the original idea behind building the lighthouses along Lake Havasu started, ironically, from a misconception.

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Even the windows of a new lighthouse need ...

As a historical re-enactor, Bob often portrays Robert P. McColloch, who founded Lake Havasu City in 1964 and brought the world renowned London Bridge to his newly established city in 1971. While researching McColloch’s storied past, Bob came across an old city brochure featuring a curious image of a lighthouse standing at the Lake Havasu Marina entrance.

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Located at Site Five along Lake Havasu shores is ...

Knowing no lighthouse stood today at the Lake Havasu Marina entrance, Bob pondered reconstructing the lighthouse featured on the cover of the brochure to celebrate and preserve the city’s history. To ensure his reconstruction was accurate, Bob sought historical guidance from Robert McColloch’s son, Richie, since the elder McColloch passed away in early 1977.

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Lake Havasu Club members ferry gear up the hill ...

But Richie had bad news for Bob. The lighthouse in the brochure never existed; it had simply been drawn into the scene for the brochure. Discouraged, but not defeated, Bob built the Lake Havasu Marina Lighthouse anyway in 2000, thinking the lighthouse would “be good for the city.”

While building the Lake Havasu Marina Lighthouse, Bob, also an avid boater, realized the entire lake lacked navigational lights to keep boaters safe. The Arizona side had a few navigational lights here and there, but the California side did not have any. Why not build navigational lights that look like actual North American lighthouses along the shores of Lake Havasu?

Bob’s ingenious idea was a hit from the start. Over 40 inspired people from the community attended the first meeting to discuss building lighthouses along Lake Havasu. After a short discussion, the Lake Havasu Yacht Club became the inaugural sponsor of the club’s first lighthouse, a replica of Maine’s famous, West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, which is the easternmost lighthouse of the continental United States..

The successful dedication of the West Quoddy Lighthouse on the Bridgewater Channel in June 2002 was quickly followed by the construction and dedication of a replica of North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Lake Havasu State Park in Oct. 2002. By June 2009, 14 more replica lighthouses enjoyed dedication ceremonies. Despite being proportionately-scaled replicas, lighthouses like Canada’s Head Harbour Lighthouse, commonly referred to as East Quoddy Light, Ohio’s Vermilion, Minnesota’s Split Rock, and Michigan’s Alpena now called Lake Havasu and the desert their home.

Hoping to recreate the original New Jersey-based Sandy Hook lighthouse on a rocky headland overlooking Lake Havasu, Bob and I arrive at the Havasu Springs Marina to help club co-founder, John Walker, and 5 other club members load the club’s pontoon boat with hammers, ladders, rubber paint cans, paint rollers, nail guns, and a generator to help with the Sandy Hook transformation.

After floating a short 200 yards, the Sandy Hook navigation light comes into view. Though the navigation light shows off its handsome shape towering into the summer sky, I can’t help but notice it’s just a shell. The wooden walls are bare, there are no windows on the face, and there’s no dedication plaque. Yet, the amber light flashes every second.

Even a casual boater is familiar with the saying “red, right, return,” meaning a mariner returning from the sea will see red lights on his or her right leaving the left side for the green lights. “But why a flashing amber light?” I inquire of Bob.

The Coast Guard granted special permission to the Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club to use flashing amber lights in addition to red and green lights to indicate a safe harbor where help is readily available after a deadly accident on Lake Havasu several years ago. Rushing back the northern end of Lake Havasu near Topock Gorge, an out-of-town visitor bled to death seeking help from the only location he knew where to get it - the Lake Havasu Marina – and unknowingly passed numerous opportunities to get help along the way.

“We started this as navigational lights. Coincidentally, they look like lighthouses,” Bob explains, emphasizing the attractive lighthouses are for boater safety first, then for visitor’s enjoyment.

As soon as the pontoon boat docks, work on the Sandy Hook navigation light commences despite the blazing 110 degree heat. Club member Ray Albert admits jokingly, “this gets me out of my wife’s ‘honey-do’ list at home.” After just a few minutes, I’m convinced laboring outside on a hot summer Arizona day is much harder work than preserving marital harmony at home in air conditioning.

In a gung-ho militaristic style, the Lake Havasu Club members don’t waste any time transforming the Sandy Hook navigation light into a lighthouse. George Muldanado starts painting the two wooden windows before the pontoon boat is fully unloaded. Up on the ladder, Bob measures the trim while Jack Hensley cuts the wood to size, who then hands the trim back to Bob to nail to the lighthouse. Jack joins Ray, Al Bittner and Rich Butler in coating the entire lighthouse with a thick coat of rubberized bright white paint. I learn that all of the gentlemen helping today happen to also be members of the Marines Corp League, which clearly explains their tremendous work ethic and teamwork.

After Ray, Al and Rich bring the lighthouse to life with its new coat of paint, Bob starts to put up the new Sandy Hook sign. He lets out a sigh as he realizes he left the jack hammer at home. “Marines are a resourceful bunch,” he says as he rigs a support for the new sign. With the sign in and the paint dry, a quick, unanimous decision is made to put the two newly painted windows on the northwest side of the lighthouse. Bob drills holes and screws the windows into perfect alignment.

With a minor touch up of paint here and there, it’s time for the final touch. Ceremoniously, Bob posts the dedication plaque underneath the two windows. We have ourselves a bona fide replica lighthouse that looks like the original Sandy Hook Lighthouse in less than a half a day’s time.

“Building them is nothing. Getting approval to build them is tough,” Bob explains.

Chalk it up to approval bureaucracy and the number of organizations that hold jurisdiction over Lake Havasu - two state governments, Arizona Bureau of Land Management, Arizona Game and Fish, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe and the Coast Guard to name a few. No other lakes in Arizona have that many hands in the pot, making the building of navigational lights on the other lakes a non-issue, but an immensely involved process for building navigational lights on Lake Havasu.

Assuming the bureaucracy is overcome, how many lighthouses will Bob and his club build? While Lake Havasu currently claims the title of “the city with most lighthouses in America,” the Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club seems to be making a gallant effort to match Michigan as the state with the most lighthouses. Club members have cited at least 35 additional sites along Lake Havasu where they feel a navigational light is needed to safely guide boaters along Lake Havasu’s deceptively dangerous shores. If Bob had his way, a navigational light would be built at every mile along the lake from Davis Dam to Parker Dam. That’s 85 miles. Could Arizona really be home to more than 85 lighthouses someday?

As the pontoon boat arrives back at the Lake Havasu Marina, I ask Bob directly how many lighthouses he plans to build along Lake Havasu. “How long will I live?” he replies with a playful grin.

This story appeared in the September 2009 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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