Buffalo Lighthouse - Table of Contents
Buffalo Lighthouse
Coast Guard Base across from the Erie Basin Marina
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Built: |
1833 Restored 1961 |
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Materials: |
Ashlar limestone and bluestone |
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AKA: |
Chinaman's Light |
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"Milk Bottle" light |
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68 feet tall. |
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To the nineteenth-century Great lakes mariners, the lighthouse was known as "Chinaman's Light" |
Lighthouse in official seal of Buffalo |
Drawing: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record |
Buffalo Lighthouse #1: The first lighthouse was financed by Oliver Forward and completed in 1818. It stood closer to shore.#2: Pictured above is Buffalo's second lighthouse. It was built in 1833, it is the oldest building on Buffalo's waterfront and one of the oldest lighthouses on the Great Lakes. The base, up to the cornice, dates from 1833, while everything above it dates from 1857.
#3: In 1914 the lens was taken from this tower to one built just behind the outer harbor breakwater. The breakwater light then became the principal, or third, Buffalo light.
#4: A fourth light, a 71-foot white tower on the breakwater itself, has been the main light since 1963.
Sources:
- Buffalo's Waterfront: A Guidebook, Edited by Timothy Tielman
- Buffalo Architecture: A Guide, by Francis R. Kowsky, et. al. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981
- Buffalo Light: Guardian of the Harbor
