Buffalo Lighthouse

Buffalo Light at the start of last night's seiche, before the daylight failed. Waves soon started breaking over the river seawall, and we took significant damage ...

The United States Lighthouse Society keeps developing activities for kids, a way to help parents cope with isolation fever in a fun way. If that's on your agenda, free downloads are available at https://uslhs.org/fun/kids-corner/lighthouse-fun-4-kids

Came across some old pictures of the Lighthouse Service's sister agency, the U.S. Lifesaving Service, in the pre-Facebook archives so I thought I'd share. This is the US Livesaving Service Station 5 in Buffalo in 1885, on the edge of our site along the river where the grove of trees is now. Other buildings include the Tenth Lighthouse Depot or the early Army Corps of Engineers to the left and the Keeper's Quarters to the right., I believe.

Starting up some work contracts at the lighthouse, now that the season officially is lost ... trying to get some exhibit space up for next year. Also, the keeper's using the time to try to put together a 35th anniversary booklet, and remembering just how much work already has been done!

Labor Day weekend brought a stormy end to a sad season, one in which we couldn't welcome visitors to the lighthouse we've worked so hard on for so many years. Look closely just to the right of the tower, and you may be able to see a waterspout forming Saturday in the cold skies over the warm waters of Lake Erie. The funnel didn't drop much lower than that, but the season's still young!

More proof that Buffalo is a coastal city ...

This has been a very tough year for all of us individually, and for all of the groups working so hard to save America's lighthouses and preserve their maritime heritage for generations to come. Those of you who follow this page, and we're grateful to all of you, know we've pretty much lost our season and the revenue it would provide. We'll get by. But lighthouses across the country are struggling too. Some of you also know that the leader of the Buffalo Lighthouse Association... (me) also now heads the United States Lighthouse Society, the national lighthouse preservation and heritage group. One of my first decisions, when I took office just as this pandemic hit, was to repurpose our preservation grants program just for this year to offer 20 emergency relief grants of $1,000 to lighthouses across the country that just needed help paying the bills or buying protective equipment for volunteers and visitors. Our amazing board of directors, leading lighthouse people from across the country, increased that to 25 so we could at least help half of the lighthouses that reached out for that aid. The checks will go out next week. USLHS is taking its own financial hits, but we all felt we just needed to help the groups that tend the lights. We wish we could do more, but In the end, we're giving just a small boost to lights from Maine to Hawaii. And I'm personally very pleased that that group will include our own neighbors at the Dunkirk, Sodus Bay and Erie, PA lighthouses. Stay vigilant, as we slowly reopen America. Help wherever you can, and please keep the sense of gratitude and mutual caring we've all developed in this pandemic. The lights are still on. Keep yours burning brightly, too. - Mike Vogel

Well, it finally happened today. Had to change the light bulb in the lighthouse. The bulbs we use are LEDs and the old one lasted about a year and a half. Lightkeeping definitely isn't as much work as it once was. The new bulb was definitely lighter than the five-gallon can of oil the keeper once had to carry up the steps and ladders and, hey, it's about once a year, not every night. And the LEDs never need trimming. I think.

Still closed, and likely to stay that way for a while -- even when Phase Four starts, we'll still have a huge storm-caused sinkhole blocking the path to the lighthouse. Once that's fixed we'll see, but our six-foot-wide path is pretty dicey for social distancing with groups and two-way traffic. That may cost us a season, under current mandated guidance.

Doesn't look like we can open anytime soon, because of tight spaces and Covid restrictions. But there's also the little matter of winter storm damage to repair, with deterioration of the partially-buried 1821 South Pier that leads to the lighthouse. That drew a close look from us, the Coast Guard and the US Army Corps of Engineers this week.

Getting a little goofy today ... decided to go back to the archives to change our cover photo to one of the removal of the fourth-order South Buffalo lens from the main 1833 Buffalo tower so it could be completely conserved for protected museum display, and a properly-sized replica third order lens could be installed in the 1833 light. We did that in 2016; South Buffalo's original Fresnel is now displayed in the Heritage Discovery Center (currently closed for the pandemic). ...To get the lens out, we reversed the process we used to install it in 1987. The lens was disassembled and the smaller lens panels were carried through the tower, but the main lens bulls-eye and the heavy mounting ring were too big for that so a block and tackle was used to move them up or down the outside of the tower. To say there was stress involved would be an understatement! See more

Work continues at Lighthouse Point, even if the season's looking like a major Covid washout. Actually, a washout is what most of the work entails ... there is some winter storm damage to fix along the path to the lighthouse, where pavers have either been tossed about or started to cave in. Meanwhile, we've seen a couple of flyovers as the military and the National Warplane Museum in Geneseo salute hospital workers. Not real close, but great to see nonetheless (you'll have to look real close to see the C-47 and P-51 above the Milk Bottle Light) and what a fitting tribute to some real heroes.

Please stay safe, do what you can to help others (even if it's just by staying home) ... and keep a good light.

Buffalo Light Station Log, April 1: The current service shutdown finally gives us time to pursue some research on the occasional sightings of rare marine creatures from the top of the tower. This season has been especially productive, with the lack of ice cover or even of ice floes on Lake Erie making it difficult for the elusive Snow Whales to hide. A rare freshwater member of the family Cetacea, the Snow Whale is indigenous to the Great Lakes, the largest freshwater system...Continue reading