Death at the Lighthouse: A Grand Island Riddle

In 1972, the author and his wife purchased the Old North Lighthouse on Grand island, near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The lighthouse was built in 1867 and stands on a 200 ft. rock cliff on the northwest side of the island in Lake Superior. Inside the cracked and crumbling yellow brick walls lighthouse, under the oil cloth on the kitchen table, Loren Graham discovered a yellowing newspaper clipping from the Detroit Free Press from June 15, 1908. It read. Grand Island Lighthouse Keeper and his assistant are believed to be victims of brutal murder and robbery. What happened in 1908 to lighthouse keeper George Genry and his assistant? Graham set out to answer this question. He began his investigation by interviewing people, reading old newspapers, and working in archives in Washington, DC, Cleveland, Ohio, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marquette, Michigan, and in local Michigan historical societies. Gradually a complex and contradictory story emerged that embraced the entire history of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with its conflicts and problems, and served like a Rorschach pattern differently interpreted by Native Americans, local whites, the U.S. Lighthouse Service, redneck loggers, a patrician strongman, wildlife poachers, excitable newspaper journalists, and an old lady digging for nickels at the base of the lighthouse. Death at the Lighthouse is the summary of Graham's thirty years of research which includes an analysis of all the various factions in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is an amazing story, well researched, well concluded.