SMI Life-Saving Station

The Life-Saving Station

NPS credit

Quick Facts

Amenities

3 listed

Picnic Table, Restroom, Water - Drinking/Potable

The United States Life-Saving Service (USLSS) station on South Manitou Island was built in 1901 and officially opened in August of 1902 with a Keeper and a crew of six surfmen. From 1901 to 1915, surfmen gave aid not only to mariners and shipwreck victims, but also to civilians living on the island. In 1915 the U.S. Life-Saving Service became part of the U.S. Coast Guard. The USLSS reports for South Manitou reveal that surfmen often used their boats to take gravely ill islanders to the mainland doctor or to bring the doctor to the island. They also helped put out fires at farm houses and on board ships, provided basic first aid, and rescued people and animals from drowning.

USLSS Keepers and Surfmen became members of the island's close-knit community. The station house only provided housing for the Keeper and his family and the single men of the crew. Many island residents turned to the USLSS for work when jobs in logging and farming began to decline. Often, family members served on the USLSS crews together and over time, some families had a several generations of men that served the USLSS.
 

After World War II, modern equipment ushered in a new era in life-saving. This was demonstrated on the cold, stormy night of November 29, 1960 when the Liberian freighter, Fransisco Morazan ran aground on the southwest shore of the island. Three Coast Guard cutters and a helicopter rescued the fifteen people on board. The battered wreck is still visible today. As a mark of the changing times, the station was permanently closed in 1958.

The Coast Guard Station now functions as the South Manitou Island Ranger Station and is not open to the public. It is a private residence and office.

Surfmen stories

Gerald Crowner
Gerald E. Crowner served as a surfman for the United States Coast Guard on South Manitou Island from 1926 to 1928. He published a memoir, The South Manitou Story, of his time on the island in 1982. His book is filled with short stories, poems, and photos that bring his service on the island to life for readers today.

The South Patrol on a Windy Fall Night
by Gerald E. Crowner

I walked alone
one starlit
windy night
and saw the clouds,
like stately galleons
pass in flight,
eclipsing the star-beams
with shadowy grace,
as they twinkled
and sparkled
through unending space.
And the surf
came in blasting,
with crests flying high,
like the manes of wild horses
against the dark sky.
And over my soul
came a glorious peace,
as I walked
in the starlight
beside turbulent seas.

John F. Tobin
John F. Tobin lived on South Manitou Island as a boy. His grandfather, John K. Tobin, served in both the Coast Guard and the Lighthouse Service on South Manitou. John's father, Harold, was born on the island and served at the Coast Guard station there until WWII. While Harold served in the war, John F. and his family moved off of the island. In 2010, John F. was interviewed for an oral history project at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He shared stories about growing up on South Manitou, attending school, and playing pranks. He was a self-proclaimed "stinker" and "rascal" during his boyhood days! In this interview clip, John describes the life-saving drills practiced by the Coast Guard, the Navy visiting on the Fourth of July, and the trouble he got into playing with black powder.

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, and because of the shoals surrounding the islands, `they fell asleep. At night, surfmen patrolled the beaches. Each station handled beach patrol a little differently. If stations were fairly close to each other, surfmen on beach patrol carried a small medallion, called a check, which was inscribed with the name of his station and his number. During beach patrol, the surfman hiked down the beach the required distance, up to four or five miles, where he met a surfman from the neighboring station and they exchanged checks. Each surfman turned the check into their Keeper in the morning as a way to prove that he had completed his patrol. Other stations, especially isolated stations such as South Manitou, used time clocks in order to prove that surfmen completed their patrols. A surfman would carry the small clock on a strap over his shoulder as he made their way down the beach. At the end of the patrol was a wooden post in the sand containing a key. The surfman inserted the key into the clock, which recorded the time on a roll of paper. Not only did this prove that surfmen completed their patrols, but also that patrols were completed on time.

The crew 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 at the USLSS

The crew spent most of their down time on the first floor (the sleeping quarters upstairs wasn't heated). The crew's quarters served as a lounging room. According to Gerald Crowner a surfman on South Manitou in 1926, "A round oak table stood by the east window with a big oil lamp suspended over it. Near the table was a wall bookcase full of books that were seldom read. In the southeast corner stood the little stand that harbored our Monkey Ward record player and the pile of records that were so often played. The big wood burner occupied a space near the south wall, near the door that led to the hallway. Rows of hooks also lined the west wall, where one could hang up coats and caps. Six or eight chairs were lined up under the double window on the north wall that faced the bay."

In the fall and winter months, the monotony of long cold months was broken up by sharing stories and tall tales around the wood burner. Neighbors often stopped in to add their tales. Mail days were happy days. They all looked forward to letters from home, friends, and sweethearts and often gathered at the post office at mail time waiting for the letters to be sorted.

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. This allowed the men to people spend a little more time at home.

There was a telephone cable that snaked its way from Sleeping Bear Point through South Manitou on to the North Manitou Lighthouse and Coast Guard Station and homes. Gerald Crowner a South Manitou surfman in 1926 tells us, "One of the crewmen on North Manitou played the mouth organ, and he played it beautifully. Quite often, he would call me when I had the midnight to two watch and play songs for me. He could play just about everything in the book. . . .Many times I would call Sleeping Bear Point, and he would call the operator at Maple City, and all of us would enjoy his music and carry on a four-way conversation."