Fresnel Lens Traditional Cache

This sixteen panel Fresnel Lens was completed in 1873 at the Henri LaPaute Company. It was delivered to the Pointe aux Barques Lighthouse in September and was installed in the 89 foot tower, where it began its history of protecting the mariners passing in this area.

Unfortunately, this Fresnel Lens was removed by the United States Coast Guard in 1969. The lens was donated to the City of Harbor Beach the following year and eventually placed on display in the city’s Grice House Museum. In 1987, the city, believing that the Coast Guard would not want it to have two lenses, it decided to loan the Point Aux Barques lens to the Huron City Museums. A fourth-order lens was kept in Harbor Beach.

in 2009, a Coast Guard curator responsible for historical assets learned that Huron City Museums was in possession of the third-order lens and attempted to execute a loan agreement with the museum. The museum failed to respond.

A formal complaint was made on October 11, 2012, The Coast Guard requires that its lenses be displayed in museum settings with security, environmental controls, and ultraviolet protection. Since none of these requirements were being met the government asked the court to order the museum to return the lens to the Coast Guard at the museum’s expense.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas L. Ludington approved a settlement on May 31, 2013, that allowed the Coast Guard to take possession of the lens. The Coast Guard retrieved the lens the following day and after some repairs were made at the Harbor Beach Coast Guard Station it was returned to Point Aux Barques Lighthouse later that summer.