Lightship Huron

Moored along the St. Clair River in Port Huron, the lightship Huron is one of only about fifteen surviving United States lightships, and one of the best preserved. Built in nineteen twenty at the Consolidated Shipbuilding yard in Morris Heights, New York, the Huron spent its working life anchored in treacherous spots on the Great Lakes where building a fixed lighthouse was impractical.

Lightships served as floating lighthouses, anchored in place in rough water, their crews living aboard for weeks at a time while warning passing freighters away from shoals and reefs. The Huron worked the Corsica Shoals area of Lake Huron for thirty-five years, from nineteen thirty-five until it was decommissioned in nineteen seventy. It is now a National Historic Landmark, open for tours in Port Huron, where it serves as a memorial to the lightship service and to the dangerous, largely forgotten work of the men who kept the Great Lakes shipping lanes open.