OSWEGO – Over the last several years, the H. Lee White Maritime Museum has hosted tours out to the Oswego West Pierhead Lighthouse, and these journeys have returned for the summer. Tours are available on Fridays and Saturdays, last roughly an hour and cost $20-25 per person.
The tour begins on the docks of Wright’s Landing, specifically in front of the welcome center. After entering the small pontoon boat, it is a short ride to the lighthouse that sits within a bed of massive rocks that protect the lighthouse and shore from the strong Lake Ontario waves. According to one of the first mates on the pontoon boat that brings guests to the lighthouse, Chuck Hutcheson, the rocks surrounding the lighthouse and in the water are precisely placed to slow down the waves and keep the shore and marina a bit calmer.
The lighthouse itself has four floors from the main machine room where guests enter the building to the top lantern deck that offers a beautiful view of the Oswego harbor.
The Oswego West Pierhead Lighthouse is actually the fourth lighthouse constructed in Oswego, while also the last one standing. The first was built in 1822 just below Fort Ontario. Remanence of the original still remains in the form of the keeper’s home which is located on the fort’s grounds. As Oswego began to blossom into the Port City with more and more ships coming in, the city had to account for them with newer and bigger lighthouses. The second was built in the mid-1830s where the present day U.S. Coast Guard station is located, according to a lighthouse pamphlet. The third one was approved for construction in 1870 and operated until 1927.
The current lighthouse began its operations in 1934 and had operators up until it became automated in 1969. The main machine room or “the basement” as tour guides call it was host to a myriad of materials including a set of air compressors that were used to sound the fog horn. Aside from construction materials from the renovation team at the lighthouse, there is also a freshwater tank and power generator.
As guests move up from the main floor, they are greeted by a new tour guide on each of the following tours. While this seems a bit different compared to having one tour guide for each group, it allows the guides to specialize in a certain area and fully answer questions that come their way.
“You have tour guides on the lower floor, the second floor and all the way upstairs, and they’ll explain to the people the history behind each room,” said Hutcheson.
After the main floor, that tour guide may walk the group up to the second floor which includes a hallway of sorts and three rooms segmented off of it. The “radio room” was the keeper’s office and home to a “radio beacon system” as the pamphlet described a radio that put the keeper in contact with the ships. The other two rooms included the kitchen and bedroom, the latter had as many as three beds for each lighthouse keeper.
The final two floors join together at the top section of the lighthouse and include a signal room and lantern deck. The signal room held the two fog horns that reached as far as 2.5 miles that blast every 30 seconds for 20 minutes. The final lantern deck holds a lantern or light to help steer ships and keep them safe. The first lantern was a Fourth Order Fresnel Lens which is now on display at the museum. The latest light comes from an LED light powered by solar that took over in 1995.
Tour groups consist of up to six members and two tours may occur at a time. Through all the history of the lighthouse, Hutcheson’s favorite aspect of the tour is not a given room, but the aw-inducing reaction the lighthouse creates.
“Seeing the people’s reactions to the lighthouse, everybody says, ‘You know I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never been out here,’” Hutcheson said. “They’re pretty excited about it.”
