Work is wrapping up this year for the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on a large undertaking to preserve a piece of the park’s history.
What began as a one-year project for the National Park Service has taken about six years to complete. Several of the Apostle Islands’ 16 light stations and lighthouses have had work done as part of its Lighthouse Preservation Project. Julie Van Stappen, the lakeshore’s chief of planning and resource management, said they’re still used as navigational aids.
“It’s just a really important part of the maritime history of the whole Great Lakes area,” she said. “We’ve got the highest concentration of lighthouses anywhere in the park service, and it tells a whole series of maritime past.”
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Many of the lighthouses were built in the mid to late 1800s. Van Stappen said stations at Sand Island and Outer Island will be closed to visitors while they repaint and sandblast lighthouses there through the end of August.
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