The first of the “Imperial Tower” lighthouses to be completed and the first official lighthouse on Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. Constructed in 1857, it was one of 6 similar lighthouses commissioned by the province of Canada West. These lights were strategically positioned to mark the busy yet treacherous trade routes that had become established on the bay. The lighthouse and the keeper’s residence were contracted to stone mason John Brown of Thorold Ontario. Brown was renowned for his fine workmanship, winning medals for innovation in plaster and cement at the 1855 Paris World’s fair.

The light was built upon a timber crib and stands 55′ in height to the focal plane. Its walls are constructed of hand faced limestone 6 feet thick at the ground level. The stone was quarried from the nearby Niagara Escarpment and delivered to the site by sailing vessels, several of which were lost to severe weather before reaching their destination. The original lantern room was designed and fabricated by the Louis Sautter Company of Paris France and housed a state of the art Argand lamp fixed within a 4th order Fresnel Lens.