Dunkirk Light

Dunkirk Light, also known as Point Gratiot Light, has guided navigation on Lake Erie since 1826 and ranks among the older light stations on the Great Lakes. The present lighthouse, first lit in 1875 after the earlier tower became dangerously unsound, features a distinctive square shaft of stone and brick. Its most unusual element is a third-order Fresnel lens first installed in 1857 and still in use, a rare survival in the United States and on the Great Lakes. Automated in 1960, the site was later preserved by local residents as both a working lighthouse and a volunteer-run veterans museum, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Dunkirk, New York · United States