Maritime Museum

The museum's front porch is a favorite place to take a break and savor the view.

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Quick Facts

Amenities

7 listed

Beach/Water Access, Entrance Passes For Sale, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Picnic Table, Restroom, Trash/Litter Receptacles

The National Lakeshore's Maritime Museum is housed in the Sleeping Bear Point U.S. Life-Saving Service Station which helped protect sailors and passengers moving through the Manitou Passage on Lake Michigan.

Visit the Maritime Museum to learn about the history of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, U.S. Coast Guard, and Great Lakes shipping. Walk through the boathouse next to the museum and see the life-saving equipment used during the early 1900's.
The museum's collection includes artifacts from ships and boats, books, plans, photographs, and navigation instruments.

Exhibits illustrate the U.S. Life-Saving Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Great Lakes shipping history. A room on the second floor is outfitted as a Steamer Wheelhouse with a panoramic view of the Manitou Passage shipping channel.

A wayside entitled, "Coast Guard Station 1902 to 1942," tells about moving the station to its present place.

U.S. Life-Saving Service

Congress established the United States Life-Saving Service (USLSS) in 1871 in an effort to reduce the number of lives lost on the oceans and the Great Lakes due to shipwrecks. The surfmen of the USLSS became known as "storm warriors" and "storm fighters." Their unofficial motto was, "you have to go out, but you don't have to come back." USLSS crews braved perilous conditions to save shipwreck victims from certain doom.

The narrow Manitou Passage, which runs between the islands and the mainland, is one of the most dangerous on the Great Lakes. Ships have to make several turns here because of the shoals surrounding the islands. At night, surfmen patrolled the beaches, looking and listening for any signs of a ship in distress.

The crew were also responsible for maintaining the station; this included keeping it clean. Every morning they cleaned the lamps and lanterns and trimmed and filled them. They swept the hallways; filled wood boxes; swept sidewalks; cleaned cuspidors and ash trays; dusted the stairway; and made their beds neat and smooth. On Saturdays, or scrub day, all station floors were scrubbed, windows washed, and brass polished.

Surfmen also kept the buildings and equipment gleaming. Maintenance of buildings usually meant repainting the buildings and cutting and splitting wood (enough wood for the two kitchen ranges and two wood burners in the station). But when needed, expanded to renovation tasks like putting on new roofs, laying new flooring, building new outhouses, and even laying new sod (and watering that sod).

The main duty of the Service was the protection of life and property on the water. But local citizens often looked to the crew when they needed help. An annual report from 1895 lists some of these "Miscellaneous Services": surfmen rigging the rope on the flagstaff of the county building, extinguishing 21 fires in homes or buildings, catching a runaway horse, repairing a wagon owned by two ladies who were kept out of the rain at the station while the surfmen worked on their buggy, finding a child lost in the woods, helping sick people get home. And once, helping a farmer get his horse out of a well.

Living in the Station House

Typical U. S. Life-Saving Service Stations were rectangular framed houses, split in two by a hallway in the middle. One side housed the crew of surfmen: kitchen, dining room, and lounging area, and above that half of the house, the crew's sleeping room. The other half of the house was the keeper's quarters: kitchen, dining area, and a living room, and two second bedrooms. The keeper and his wife slept in one of the bedrooms and the children in the other room.

The crew spent most of their time in the on the first floor as the sleeping quarters upstairs wasn't heated. They read, played cards, listened to music, cooked meals, and told stories.

Upstairs in the sleeping quarters, each surfman had an iron bed and a closet with a number over the door to identify who it belonged to. The closet shelves held spare sheets and blankets, a swimming suit, and each man's regulation clothing. The men also kept a case of wooden matches in small wooden boxes, a jack knife, and towels, all folded neatly. Their dress coat which hung on the door. Each man also had a book of regulations.

There was no washstand upstairs. Washing took place either in the kitchen or out in the laundry room. The station had a shallow water well. A pump by kitchen was the only inside plumbing. They had no electricity, only oil or gas lights. One keeper bought a little metal bathtub and installed it so it drained, but they still had to fill the tub with bucketsful of water heated on the wood stove.

Many of the surfmen had their own, small houses nearby. This allowed them to be with their families. The surfmen had one day off every 8 days, otherwise they were on duty 24 hours a day. Regulations required the men to sleep at the station except for their day off. But some keepers were more lenient allowing men to stay in their cottages near the station, where they could be called quickly to come in an emergency and let people spend a little more time at home.