Cape Croker Lighthouse

The original lighthouse was a wooden structure built in 1898. Also containing a foghorn. It stood 65 feet (20 m) from the edge of the water. Its height was 25 feet (7.6 m) and was painted white. It was the first lighthouse in Canada to have an electric light and foghorn run by power produced on site. The building were erected for $3,559 and the gasoline engines and power plant for $3,358.[4]

Richard Chapman was hired as the first keeper. In a month he found out the electric equipment didn't work properly and was forced to use a fixed white oil light until the issue could be resolved. In 1903 the characteristic of the lighthouse was altered to show a fixed light for 23 seconds followed by an ellipse for 4.5 seconds. The same year a fog horn run by compressed air replaced the electric fog horn. The new horn sounded for 15 seconds separated by 15 seconds of silence. In 1905, a separate fog alarm building was built just south of the lighthouse, forty feet from the water. In 1908 a concrete-lined well was added as well as a dock for receiving coal and other supplies needed for the facility. In 1927, the steam fog alarm plant was replaced by an oil plant. The lighthouse was mostly isolated from the rest of the Bruce Peninsula, besides from boat and walking until Keeper Norman Whetton spent two years building a road. After finishing work, he took his motorboat and cleared the next section of road. One the road was completed he and his family would take the road to arrive in April and Depart in December. John Adams who served from 1968 to 1979 recalls preventing a fire when a lightning bolt hit the fog alarm building. The last keeper was Fredric Jerome Proulx, who left in 1986 after six years of service. In 1975 the residence and the fog alarm were demolished leaving only the concrete lighthouse. In 2007 the Canadian Coast Guard removed the Fresnel lens from the tower as vandalism was threatening its safety. The Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre enter negotiations so it could display the lens at the museum. In 2009 the museum received the lens.[4]