NMI U.S. Life-Saving Service Dwelling

Park staff live and work in this charming house during the summer months.

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North Manitou Island Life-saving Station is the oldest of the three lifesaving stations on the Manitou Passage; its history spans nearly 90 years representing the earliest beginnings of the Life Saving Service on the Great Lakes. The buildings illustrate the beginnings of the volunteer era and continue through the expansion of the Life-Saving Service into the Coast Guard era.

Members of the USLSS were responsible for rescuing victims aboard ships in distress using a variety of equipment. The USLSS eventually became the main employer of North Manitou Island residents. Crews on the Great Lakes were usually composed of a Keeper and six to eight surfmen. The crew had a number of duties including twenty-four-hour beach patrol, beach apparatus drill, boat drill, signal drill, and practice at "restoring the apparently drowned."

For nearly eighty years, the presence of the U.S. Life Saving Service station made North Manitou Village the primary social and economic hub of the island. The U.S. Life Saving Service, and Cottage Row's summer residents, infused the relatively isolated North Manitou Island economy with cash and linked the Island with the larger regional economy. The station represented an important source of employment for residents, and a small, local market for agriculturists. Young men from several island farm families took jobs with the U.S. Coast Guard. Many year-round residents, especially women and children, earned cash wages by performing domestic chores such as washing, sewing, cleaning, and canning. The station crew provided the island with fire protection, first-aid, and police services, and also served as a vital communication link with the mainland and the outside world, and as a center of island social life.

Today, park employees live and work in the station house during the summer months.

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.