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Crisp Point Light

lighthouse in Michigan, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 1, 2025
Entity authorityQ5186005
Source-derived summary

Crisp Point was one of five U.S. Life-Saving Service Stations along the coast of Lake Superior between Munising and Whitefish Point in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The lighthouse is within McMillan Township in Luce County.

Located about 14 miles (23 km) west of Whitefish Point, in 1876 it became Life Saving Station Number Ten, of the U.S. Life-Saving Service District 10 (later part of District 11). Crisp Point is named from one of the Life Saving Station keepers, Christopher Crisp, who is said to have been "an iron-willed boatman." Surfmen were stationed there to aid mariners and ships in distress. The station, along with the rest of the United States Life-Saving Service, was integrated into the United States Coast Guard in 1915. (In 1939 the U.S. Lighthouse Service also merged under the control of the Coast Guard). Because the US Life-Saving Service and the US Lighthouse Service were originally two distinct entities, the Crisp Point Life Saving Station and the Crisp Point Lighthouse were also originally two separate entities.

The other four Life-Saving Stations were Vermilion Point (now Vermilion, Michigan), about five miles (8 km) east of Crisp Point, Two Hearted River, 5 or 6 miles (8.0 or 9.7 km) west of Crisp Point, Deer Park, Michigan (formerly known as the Sucker River Station and Muskallonge Lake Station), about 10 or 11 miles (16 or 18 km) west of Two Hearted River, and Grand Marais about 15 or 16 miles (24 or 26 km) west of Deer Park.

History

Crisp Point Lighthouse was first proposed in 1896 and every year thereafter until finally approved in June, 1902. Construction began one year later.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Crisp Point Light” is lighthouse in Michigan, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Crisp, Point and Light, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1876, 1915, 1939, 1896—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Crisp, Point and Light is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “lighthouse in Michigan, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5186005. Authority coordinates are 46.753, -85.257. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1876, 1915, 1939 and 1896.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Crisp Point Light” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.