Christian Island Lighthouse

Christian Island Lighthouse was the first of the “Imperial Tower” lighthouses to be completed and the first official lighthouse on Lake Huron's Georgian Bay. Constructed in 1857, it was one of six similar lighthouses commissioned by the province of Canada West and strategically positioned to mark the bay's busy yet treacherous trade routes. The lighthouse and keeper's residence were contracted to stone mason John Brown of Thorold, Ontario, who was renowned for fine workmanship and had won medals for innovation in plaster and cement technique at the 1855 Paris World's Fair. Built upon a timber crib, the light stands 55 feet in height to the focal plane, with hand faced limestone walls six feet thick at ground level. The stone was quarried from the nearby Niagara Escarpment and delivered by sailing vessels, several of which were lost to severe weather before reaching the site. Its original lantern room was designed and fabricated by the Louis Sautter Company of Paris, France, and housed a state of the art Argand lamp fixed within a fourth order Fresnel lens.

Ontario · Canada