Congress appropriated $35,000 on October 22, 1913, to build a light-and-fog station at Lorain harbor. After plans were approved in 1916, construction began, and the concrete structure was finished and its light placed in service in 1917, though the station was not completed until 1919. Its foundation consists of a wooden crib and stone-filled boxes, and the lighthouse has a basement and three floors topped by a lantern room. It used identifying signals based on the duration of the fog horn’s blast and the rotation and duration of the light. A fourth order Fresnel lens was installed in 1919 and lit with an incandescent oil vapor lamp, which was converted to electric power in 1932. The lighthouse was manned by the U.S. Lighthouse Service until the U.S. Coast Guard took control of all U.S. lighthouses in 1939. The Coast Guard decommissioned it in 1965 and scheduled it for demolition, but inclement weather, a concerned-citizens group, and community interest led the Coast Guard to retain it in 1966. During the following decade, a Save-the-Lighthouse committee led a preservation campaign. The Lorain County Historical Society acquired the lighthouse in 1977, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 1990 it became the property of the Lorain Lighthouse Foundation, formerly the Port of Lorain Foundation. In 1991, pupils from 24 of the city’s public and private schools were among those supporting the foundation, collecting 2,861 pounds of pennies valued at $5,000.05. Since its rescue in the mid-1960s, community volunteers have worked diligently to preserve Lorain’s “Jewel of the Port.”