Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1883 — LIKE REGION LIGHT-HOUSES. [ARTICLE]

LIKE REGION LIGHT-HOUSES.

[Washington Telegram.] The report of the Light-house board says the Eleventh Light-house district (upper lake region) contains 117 separate light stations and embraces 2,508 statute miles of lake coast. The district has become so large that it has become unwieldy. No Inspector can perform his' other duties and visit each of its 117 light stations once each three months, as required by the regulations for the inspection of the lights and the payment of the keepers, as the stations are too numerous and too far apart. The completion of the Northern Pacific railroad has given a stimulus to the navigation of -the upper lakes, and it is evident that as the commerce of the upper lakes increases additional lights and more buoys will be required. It is therefore recommended that the Light-house district which embraces the upper lakes be divided; that the portion which embraces Lake Michigan and Green Bay be set off and called the Seventeenth Light-house district, with headquarters at Milwaukee, and that the portion which embraces Lake Huron and Lake Superior be set off, retaining the old name, with headquarters at Detroit. The increase in the aids to navigation over the number in 1852, when the district was constituted, and the prospective increase in the near fu. ture makes the division quite neoessary.