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On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in August 2006, Milton Lovett stepped onto Michigan’s DeTour Reef Light for the first time in almost 48 years.
As a young man Milton served on the Light from 1958-1959 as an EN3 (Engineman 3rd Class) with the Coast Guard.
He was one of the few men who volunteered for the duty.
“I thought it was great that I got so much time off” he stated. The job schedule consisted of 3 weeks on the Light followed by one week off plus an additional 30 days of leave because of the remoteness of the assignment. “I was able to do a lot of traveling and have a lot of fun. Of course that was before I met my wife.”
After a 25 year career with the Coast Guard, with additional assignments in Texas Alaska, New York, Florida, Louisiana and Alabama, Milton retired as a W4 (Commissioned Warrant Officer). He and Geneva, his wife of 46 years, now live in Alabama.
The Light he worked on in the late 1950’s looks much the same Milton observed, however the color on the walls isn’t the same. He especially remembers the ugly pea soup green on all of the walls of the living quarters. The only paint choices provided by the Coast Guard were white, gray, black, and an ugly pea soup green. Also there was more furniture in the lighthouse, including bunk beds in the assistant keeper’s bedroom. DRLPS restored the lighthouse to the original 1931 wall colors and twin beds as indicated by the August 1931 bid specifications for the furnishings of DeTour Reef Light Station issued by the Sup--erintendent of Lighthouses of the U.S. Lighthouse Service.
While he was in the area he also had the opportunity to see the Light’s original Fresnel lens at the DeTour Passage Historical Museum. He reminisced about the many hours he spent cleaning the lens.
In an effort to learn more about the Light’s active years, DRLPS Historian, Chuck Feltner, has researched log books back to 1931, when the lighthouse was built. Using the internet, local sources solid hunches, and a lot of phone calls, he has located a total of 15 past keepers and talked with 11 of them, including Milton.
By the end of the year, the DRLPS plans to release a 4 DVD set entitled “DeTour Reef Light: A Collection of Historical Materials”. The collection will contain approximately 11,000 pages of log books, 1,000 pages of correspondence, 75 original photos, and 125 original engineering and architectural drawings used to build the Light. Oral history videos will include interviews of Alfred Lemieux, one of the builders of the Light in 1931; Keepers Jim Williams, Floyd Colvin,
Ron Freels, and Robert Soldenski; 95 year old Glen Shaw from DeTour, MI, who as a tug boat captain, watched the Light being built; and Jim Woodward, who as a young civilian Engineer at the Coast Guard’s Ninth District in Cleveland, worked on drawings related to the shutdown of the Light in 1974.
If you have information on former keepers stationed at DeTour Reef Light, or have any historical material such as photographs, memorabilia, etc., please contact Chuck Feltner at (906) 493-6517 or email cfeltner@starband.net.
The DeTour Reef Light Preservation Society (DRLPS) has worked diligently since 1998 to restore and preserve the DeTour Reef Light located one mile offshore in northern Lake Huron at the far eastern end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula between DeTour Village and Drummond Island. Built in 1931, the 83-foot high lighthouse is a strategic and historic landmark marking a dangerous reef and helping guide ship traffic from and to Lake Huron and Lake Superior via the strategic St. Mary’s River. The DRLPS completed major restoration of the structure in 2004. This summer marked the second year that public tours and a weekend lighthouse keepers program have been available at this unique lighthouse.
To learn more about the organization, the lighthouse,
and the public tour and light keeper programs, please
visit www.DRLPS.com, email drlps@lighthouse.net, call
(906) 493-6609 or write to DRLPS, PO Box 307, Drummond Island, MI 49726.
This story appeared in the
December 2006 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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