Patty Loew:
Military ships, ocean liners and schooners have all sailed through the hazardous waters around Door County. It has 300 miles of shoreline where ten lighthouses stand watch to guide sailors safely through the rocky shoals. But one stands out from all the rest. The first one. The Potawatomi Lighthouse on Rock Island is the oldest in Wisconsin, built in 1836. It has weathered many storms and after an extensive renovation the history of the lighthouse comes back to life during the summer on Rock Island. Life has never been easy on this isolated island. Don Lockhart remembers.

Don Lockhart:
It's a beautiful job. It looks just like I pretty much remember it.

Patty Loew:
His father, Ernie, was the last assistant light keeper here. In 1999 Lockhart returned to check out the restoration of his boyhood home.

Don Lockhart:
Many trips up these steps. To see it being restored is really -- pretty neat.

Patty Loew:
The restoration team from the Friends of Rock Island used paint chips to match the color of dyes available in 1910.

Don Lockhart:
Nice job.

Patty Loew:
Since Don's visit the hands of time have been rewound, returning this lighthouse to 1910. It's now open for tours.

Tim Sweet:
Welcome to the lighthouse. We're standing in the summer kitchen, an addition put on here in 1880. There is a hand pump. If there was water in the cisterns, they had running water, so to speak, in their house. If it was a dry time they had to hike to the lake and haul the water back up. We're standing in the kitchen of the head keeper's quarters. The house was a duplex. The keeper had the main floor here and the assistant would have had the upstairs.

Patty Loew:
The oven served a dual purpose. Emily Bets, the light keeper's wife was also the midwife. She'd use the oven on top of the range to keep infants warm when it wasn't being used to cook potatoes.

Tim Sweet:
If you were eating those potatoes you would be able to eat them on official United States Lighthouse Service china.

Patty Loew:
Rock Island was in its heyday between 1830 and 1860 with a fishing village on the east side where families lived in one room log cabins. The lighthouse was more like a castle.

Tim Sweet:
When you got into this lighthouse you would look around and go wow, this is really quite the place compared to what you were used to living in.

Patty Loew:
The wide windowsills in the parlor exposed the thickness of the stone exterior.

Tim Sweet:
Here we've got your entertainment center. The precursor to the iPod. It had music that was recorded on these wax cylinders. We've entered the head keepers' bedroom. A nice view of the Rock Island passage. If you look through the window over there you can see some of the original wavy glass that dates back to when the house was first built. Here is a floor plan of the house. You can see that we're in the assistant's kitchen right now on the other side of the wall was another living room or parlor and then the two rooms that faced the lake were set up as bedrooms.

Patty Loew:
And then the tour takes you for a climb. A very steep climb that comes with a warning.

Tim Sweet:
Watch your head there, gals. We're passing by a little area here called the watch room where the lighthouse keeper on duty would hang out. Maybe record the daily happenings in his log book and still have a view out the watch window.

Patty Loew:
Finally coming into view, the new lantern room.

Tim Sweet:
It was called a fixed white light which means once it was lit it stayed on all night. It didn't flash, rotate, didn't have any other color to it. But they said under the best conditions it could be seen at a distance of about 14 miles.

Patty Loew:
In 1945 the federal government could see the future and decided to automate the beacon and close the lighthouse.

Tim Sweet:
The old lighthouse is not active as an aid to navigation anymore but the steel tower that is adjacent to us right here still has an active aid to navigation light that's listed on the coast guard's light list.

Patty Loew:
Reaching toward the sky, this modern maze provides a stark contrast to the picturesque lighthouse perfectly preserved in time.

Tim Sweet:
Its purpose was to guide ships and mariners through this passage so they would safely make it to their destination.

Patty Loew:
Ships passing through the Rock Island passage shimmer in the shadows of an early morning as they make a safe journey around Potawatomi Point, a time-honored tradition and salute to a time gone by. We asked Tim Sweet what he would like to see as his legacy 50 years from now. With a great pause he said he hoped volunteers would still be working with the state to maintain Wisconsin's first lighthouse so future generations will continue to learn its history. The Friends group has now shifted some of its time and energy toward the boat house and other historic buildings on Rock Island built by entrepreneur Chester Thordarson.