On Rock Island's northernmost point, 122 feet above Lake Michigan, Wisconsin's first lighthouse was built in 1836 and, because it was not well built, was replaced by the present structure in 1858. In its early years, lighthouse-keeping families lived there year-round among several smaller buildings, with cleared grounds for wood, gardens, apple trees, and lilac bushes. During the dry summer of 1884, with no rain and a defect in the cisterns, the keeper and his family carried water from the lake two bucketfuls at a time up 154 steps until a well was drilled in 1903, while copper gutters also directed rainwater into basement cisterns. Because tending the light required more than one person, keepers were expected to be married, and residents sustained themselves by fishing, keeping livestock, and gardening; one keeper's wife even taught school in the basement for the island's fishing families. Supporting buildings included a white stone privy, the oldest building in Door County, a small brick oil house for lamp fuel and later kerosene, a tiny wooden smokehouse, and a nearby barn whose ruins remain evident. In 1946 the light was automated, the last keeper departed, and the building stood vacant for decades before the Department of Natural Resources and the Friends of Rock Island partnered to restore the lighthouse and surrounding area to their early-1900s appearance. Its Fourth order Fresnel lens produced a steady white light visible for 14 nautical miles.