Queries · Research · Small Craft · Society Members

Researching Small Craft

Small Craft for Lighthouse and Buoy-Tending Work; A Lesser-Known Part of U.S. Lighthouse Service History by Timothy Dring; CDR, USNR-Retired While there has been a lot of very fruitful historical research on the history of the lighthouses and personnel that have served the United States, much less is known about one aspect of U.S. Lighthouse… Continue reading Researching Small Craft

News · Preservation · Queries

Survey for Owners of Lighthouses Conveyed Under the NHLPA

The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 (NHLPA) amends the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and allows federal agencies, local/state governments, and nonprofit organizations to apply for lighthouses deemed excess by the federal government. If no suitable applicant is found through a stewardship transfer, the lighthouse goes to auction and is given to… Continue reading Survey for Owners of Lighthouses Conveyed Under the NHLPA

Lighthouse Stewards · Queries

Query on Lighthouse Visitor Registers

Extract from the 1881 Instructions to Light Keepers
Extract from the 1881 Instructions to Light Keeper

Lighthouses have always been tourist attractions. At some point keepers were instructed to track the number of visitors to their stations. This may have been when the practice of guests signing a register started.

Jennifer Niemi, program manager at Split Rock Lighthouse, a state historic site maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), submits the following query to other lighthouse stewards:

Our site has been gathering DATE, NAME, CITY, STATE & ZIP literally forever (starting with the USLHS, then Coast Guard & now MNHS) and then the filled registries get stored to never be looked upon again. We are trying to figure out if we can use the information for something useful or if we should just scrap the whole practice, as in its current state it’s quite useless information. The only real reason for doing it is because it has been done historically at the site.

Jennifer would like lighthouse stewards to answer the following questions:

  1. Do you use guest registers for visitors to sign in where they are from?
  2. If so, what do you ask them to share (name, city, zip, etc.)?
  3. And what do you do with that information?

Please submit your responses directly to Jennifer at jennifer.niemi@mnhs.org. She will prepare a summary for a followup post.

Based on query submitted by Jennifer Niemi on January 9, 2017.

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