Here’s the HURON Lightship Site Manager, Jerry Rome.

Going down to the Engine Room, please face the steps going down, as well as face the steps coming up. It’s just much safer as you go in and exit that area. Now down in the Engine Room, from 1920-1948 this was a boiler room. Scotch coal fire boiler, it took up the majority of the space down there along with the coal for the boiler. However in 1948 at the Bay City Michigan Shipyard, stripped the coal and the boilers off, brought diesel engines aboard. So the big ones that you see down here are the 6-71 GM Detroit twin diesels, and that was the propulsion for the ship. That’s what made the ship move through the water.

Along the bulkhead behind them you see some canisters back there, gray canisters. Those were charcoal filters and as the water was pulled out of the lake it was ran through the filters, filtering out the sand and the fish, adding chlorine to it, making it safe to drink, and it went into the two fresh water tanks for cooking and drinking. Bypassing those filters however for their sanitary water, for their showers, their stools, and their laundry. Now the red pump down here, the fire pump, in the event of a fire aboard the ship, they would start the electric motor up and the fire pump would pull the water out of the lake, that would give them volume and pressure for their fire hoses.

We have two, 2-cylinder diesels down here, 2-71s, and one was used to power the fog horn, it’s hooked up to an air compressor, which previously was supplied with steam. They needed one, they had two; redundancy aboard a ship. And also down here you find two more 2-cylinder diesels that are hooked to a DC generator producing electricity for the ship. Previous to them coming aboard however, it would have been oil lamps in the compartments, light up on the lantern mast to acetylene gas. Two big white tanks in this area as well, and as the diesel would run, driving the air compressor, it would fill up those two big white tanks there, and every 30 seconds for 3 seconds in the fog, the foghorn would bellow, “ BO.” 30 seconds later again. That could go on for minutes, hours, days, however long it would take for the fog to go away.

Down here is also the “Hear Here Station” for the phone and as you put your head in there, the further you put your head in there, the quieter the surrounding sounds get. The engine rooms were very noisy and this was an attempt to try and quiet it down so the sailors could hear on that phone. Now they couldn’t talk on that phone from the phone to mother at home but it was from one compartment to another for communication. As you leave the engine room and go up the stairs which we call a ladder, please remember to go up facing the steps and hanging on with both hands and please be careful of your head as you go up.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief audio recording. There is so much more for you to enjoy with a guided tour. For more information, click “PortHuronMuseums.com”

Recorded and produced by Van Rohr