Port Clinton holds 5th Annual Lighthouse Festival

Melissa Baker
·2 min read

PORT CLINTON - On Saturday, Port Clinton held its 5th Annual Port Clinton Lighthouse and Maritime Festival. This festival celebrates the rich heritage of the beautifully restored lighthouse in the city.

“The Port Clinton Lighthouse and Maritime Festival originally was called just the Lighthouse Festival," said Rich Norgard, president of the Port Clinton Lighthouse Conservancy.

Rich Norgard, president of the Port Clinton Lighthouse Conservancy, attended the lighthouse festival.
Rich Norgard, president of the Port Clinton Lighthouse Conservancy, attended the lighthouse festival.

"We added the maritime because we wanted to expand so we could include more of an appreciation for the marine heritage," he said. "It was at one point a big commercial fishing port.”

During the festival, there were free lighthouse tours, speakers on historic topics, plein air art, a nautical flea market, food vendors, the Ottawa County Bluegrass band, plus a wooden antique boat show.

Activities included the Boys Scouts of America, who had a balloon-popping booth, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of Ottawa County, where patrons could win prizes in a picture dice matching game.

Lighthouse on the Air had a tent in which allowed those attending to speak to other lighthouses locations. The Lighthouse on the Air is an amateur radio station that contacts lighthouses around the world, through radio and new computer technology.

“We asked the vendors to have a nautical theme to incorporate the maritime life and celebrate the lighthouse,” Norgard added.

Patrons of the 5th Annual Port Clinton Lighthouse and Maritime Festival check out the antique wooden boats.
Patrons of the 5th Annual Port Clinton Lighthouse and Maritime Festival check out the antique wooden boats.

Lighthouse is the last of its kind on Lake Erie

The Port Clinton lighthouse is the last timber frame lighthouse on Lake Erie and was in operation from 1896 to 1952. At that time the Coast Guard decided to remove it and totally automate it, replacing the lighthouse with just a steel post with the light. They hired a local man to take it off the pier and he was supposed to burn it, but he refused to burn it and took it up to his marina, where it sat for 60 years.

In 2011, a group of U.S. locals decided to come to get together and restore it and find a place for it on the waterfront to bring it back to the water. It took three years to restore it and it was brought to its location spot in Port Clinton in August 2016. A year after the first lighthouse festival was held 2017.

For more information about the lighthouse go to www.portclintonlighthouse.org.

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Port Clinton celebrates lighthouse, maritime history at festival