“Saving lives, guiding lives, we all face storms. » Tours Return to Buffalo Lighthouse

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The Buffalo Lighthouse first beamed its light in 1833, just eight years after the opening of the Erie Canal. It served as a beacon for ships setting sail, but also for the growth of our city and our nation.

“This lighthouse marks the junction of the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. It’s a national historic site,” said Mike Vogel, president of the Buffalo Lighthouse Association. “It’s a beacon that stood for a long time, that watched a river of immigration heading west to the Great Lakes, and it watched a river of commerce coming back to enter the Erie Canal and go to New York.”

Vogel tells us that it was the second of four lighthouses built as the port expanded, so it was necessary to build new ones, further and further away. Two of these four, including the Buffalo Lighthouse, still exist today.

“When the lighthouse was built, it was not on land, but at the end of a pier that extended a quarter of a mile into the lake. The purpose of the pier was to expand the port because the Erie Canal had just opened and port traffic was totally clogged,” Vogel said.

Vogel tells us that the city was bustling throughout the first half of the 20th century, with ships coming in and out of the harbor almost constantly, but after the opening of Sea Way, Buffalo’s waterfront experienced a decline .

A frater hit the third lighthouse built in 1961, Vogel said, and a group of engineers wanted to raze the spit of land the Buffalo Lighthouse stood on and demolish the lighthouse. Vogel tells us that, thanks to public outcry, the lighthouse was saved and it was the first preservation project in the city of Buffalo.

“I have a plaque outside the lighthouse commemorating the plaque that represents this preservation effort,” Vogel said.

One day in 1985, Vogel received a call from the commander of the Coast Guard and, being a journalist at the time, he thought it was for an article. Instead, they discussed the future of the lighthouse and worked out a 501c3 to create a nonprofit corporation to help care for the lighthouse.

“It’s an icon of the city of Buffalo, so to experience places like this, especially scenic places like this that are so easy to visit, is to learn more about the place where you live ” Vogel said. “Your sense of belonging, your community, it’s part of your story. The story of this lighthouse is your story.

Visitors can walk around the base and, on some days, climb to the top using the 50 steps and three ladders that lead up the tower. These weekend tours help shed light on the story and resume this season.

“We’ve lost three of the last four years,” Vogel said. “COVID has closed us down because the path is too narrow for social distancing. There was a storm in November 2020 that shut us down destroying the walkway for 202, then we were open for 2022, but then the Christmas blizzard in December of that year really did a number on the walkway .

If you would like to visit the park and lighthouse, you can check out their Facebook page here for schedules and information. It costs $4 to tour the grounds and $10 to climb the lighthouse when it is open for tours.

“Lighthouses symbolize endurance, hope, strength, they bid farewell to travelers as they head into the unknown, and then they welcome them back,” Vogel said. “In saving lives, in guiding lives, we all weather the storms. We all need guidance in our lives. I think people realize this deeply when they come to see a lighthouse, even if they don’t consciously think about it. They visit the magic of the shore and the sea.”