Light Hearted

Light Hearted ep 75 – Sandy Bihn, Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Preservation Society, Ohio

Toledo Harbor Lighthouse was established in 1904 in the western end of Lake Erie, marking the entrance to the Toledo Shipping Channel and the approach to the Port of Toledo on the Maumee River. The buff-colored brick tower has a steel framework, and the total height of the lighthouse is 85 feet. There’s also an attached one-story fog signal building. The building’s distinctive Romanesque architecture has led some to liken it to a gingerbread house. Resident keepers staffed the lighthouse until its 1966 automation.

Toledo Harbor Lighthouse. U.S. Lighthouse Society photo.
Sandy Bihn (Great Lakes Echo)
Circa 1910 postcard; USLHS archives.

Today the lighthouse is in the care of the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Preservation Society, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization with more than 500 members. Under the provisions of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, ownership of the lighthouse was conveyed to the Society in 2007. Sandy Bihn is the founder and president of the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Preservation Society. She was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ohio Environmental Council in 2017.

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