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U.S. Life-Saving Station

Glen Haven, Michigan

By Bob Ransom

June 29^th, 2018

A Dark and stormy night

Imagine this: It's an early evening in late October, 1904, on the shore of Lake Michigan. What had begun as a light rain shower in the morning has intensified into a major fall storm with winds now at gale force and 10 ft. waves crashing onto the beach. Further out in the lake, the waves are topping 18 ft., sending hundreds of lake freighters and passenger steamers scrambling for shelter. The air temperature has dropped to 44° F. while the surface water temperature hovers around 50° F. You've just settled in for what you hope will be a quiet few hours before your watch begins at midnight when the alert is sounded by the surfman on duty: a passenger steamer has run aground roughly two miles out. Time to go to work.

seven men and a rowboat

This is where it gets crazy: You and your six co-workers will push a giant, 26 ft. long, 2000 lb. rowboat down a set of railroad tracks leading towards the lake. But the tracks end well short of the water, replaced by a set of log rollers that help (kind of, sort of) move the boat into the surf. Once in the water, you and your fellow surfmen, wearing your cork life jackets and probably soaked to the bone, row out through the massive waves to the steamer to try to bring as many of the passengers and crew back to shore as possible before the steamer breaks up or sinks. And it's not just one trip out and back — it's as many trips as it takes until every last person is off the steamer.

Welcome to the U.S. Life Saving Service.

A little history

I'm a bit of a history nerd and find the story of the Life Saving Service fascinating. The storms on the Great Lakes are legendary, and to willingly go out in them in a row boat takes a special kind of — umm, insanity? Here's a YouTube video of what Lake Michigan can look like late in the year. This was shot a few miles south of the Sleeping Bear station. And, note, this is a sunny day.

The Life Saving Service began as an all volunteer organization founded in the late 1700's by the Massachusetts Humane Society — seriously. I haven't been able to find out if this is the same Humane Society we think of today that handles stray dogs and cats but here's a Wikipedia link about them (link).

By the mid-1800's, Congress had realized the value of the Service and began funding it, allowing for a transition from all-volunteer to a paid, professional organization that eventually grew into what we know now as the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Sleeping Bear Point station was built in 1901 and was actually moved to its current location in 1931, building by building, to get it farther from the lake shore as the sand dunes kept trying to swallow it up. The station is now part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (in other words, a national park) and open to visitors during the summer months.

There wasn't much privacy in the crew quarters. Each surfman was assigned a cot and a closet to store his gear.

Lyle gun & breeches buoy

During the summer, the Park Service rangers do a daily demonstration of near-shore rescues using the Lyle gun (the little cannon you see below), breeches buoy, and a couple of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. On Thursdays, the traditional day that Lyle gun practice was done, they demonstrate firing the gun.