The United States of America is a federal union of 50 states and a capital district. Located in the western Great Lakes region, the state of Wisconsin has two coastlines. One coastline faces north on Lake Superior and includes the Apostle Islands stretching out into the lake. The other coastline faces east on Lake Michigan. This page includes lighthouses of the Lake Superior coastline; the remaining Wisconsin lighthouses are on the Northeastern Wisconsin and Southeastern Wisconsin pages. When Wisconsin was organized as a territory in 1836 it included all of the modern states of Minnesota and Iowa and the eastern half of North and South Dakota. In 1838 the area west of the Mississippi River was split off as Iowa Territory. Wisconsin, with its present boundaries, was admitted to the Union as the 30th state in 1848. Aids to navigation in northern Wisconsin are maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team Duluth, located in neighboring Minnesota, but ownership (and sometimes operation) of historic lighthouses has been transferred to local authorities and preservation organizations in most cases. All but one of the historic lighthouses of northern Wisconsin are now owned by National Park Service. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. USCG numbers are from volume 7 of the U.S. Coast Guard List of Lights.
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![]() Outer Island Light, Apostle Islands, August 2018 Google Maps photo by Milan Bindas |
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![]() LaPointe Light, June 2020 Google Maps photo by Norm Walker |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Minnesota | East: Northern Upper Michigan
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index
Posted September 2002. Checked and revised October 30, 2024. Lighthouses: 12. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.