Recognizing the importance of Huron’s harbor, Huron and Milan businessmen formed the Huron Harbor Company to improve it, partially funding the project through the public auction sale of one half of Huron’s 120-acre town plat. When the company exhausted its funds in 1827, the federal government took control, dredged the river mouth, built two parallel piers, and constructed the first Huron lighthouse. That wooden lighthouse was battered by Lake Erie storms and began to fall apart, so it was rebuilt in 1857 at the end of the west pier, where the blockhouse still stands. The new iron lighthouse had a spiral staircase leading to the light and foghorn, and a lighthouse keeper tended its eight oil-burning lamps by traveling back and forth several times a day. In the 1930s, a $471,519 harbor project deepened and widened the Huron River, extended the west pier, dismantled the east pier, and built a new lighthouse. Designed in the art deco style, the pyramidal structure stood 65 feet above a concrete pedestal at the end of the extended pier, three quarters of a mile from shore, powered by an ice-protected cable and equipped with a fog detector, horn, and a light visible 18 miles away on a clear night. It became one of the most impressive and modern lighthouses on the Great Lakes and helped sustain Huron Harbor as one of Lake Erie’s busiest ports. Today the lighthouse remains largely unchanged except for removal of the lantern room and other minor modifications.