In the early 1800s, Lake Huron mariners considered Presque Isle the best natural harbor between Port Huron and Mackinac, and because many ships anchored there for shelter and cordwood to fuel their boilers, Congress appropriated $5,000 to build a lighthouse. The Old Presque Isle Lighthouse was completed in 1840 with a 30-foot-high conical tower, an 18-foot-diameter base tapering to 9 feet at the top, an upper third of brick, a lower part of stone, 4-foot-thick walls, and a circular staircase formed from chiseled stone blocks. When trees obscured the light for southbound ships, a taller light station was built, and in 1871 the New Presque Isle Light went into service. Its 113-foot-high brick tower, the tallest light structure on the Great Lakes, still functions today, now automated and electrically lit, and its lantern housing contains the original Third Order Fresnel Lens with a range of over 10 miles. The old light and its small keeper’s cottage are now a museum, the new light’s attached 2-story keeper’s house is also a museum, and front and rear range lights built in 1870 once marked the channel for approaching ships. The Garrity family served prominently as keepers: Patrick Garrity was the last keeper of the old lighthouse and the first at the new one from 1861 to 1885; his son Thomas served from 1885 to 1935; another son, Patrick, was assistant keeper there from 1890 to 1904 and elsewhere until 1937; a third son, John, served as a lightkeeper on Lakes Huron and Superior; and their sister Anna kept the Presque Isle Range Lights aglow from 1903 to 1926, keeping nightly watch from a rocking chair on her porch.