Erie Land Lighthouse

The first American lighthouse on the Great Lakes was lit here in 1818. That is the claim, and it holds up: the Presque Isle light on the bluff at Erie predates every other U.S. Great Lakes station.

Erie mattered early. Presque Isle Bay is the best natural harbor on the American side of Lake Erie, and it had already made itself famous — Oliver Hazard Perry built and fitted out the fleet here that won the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. Five years later the government put a light on the bluff to mark the harbor entrance.

Three towers on one hill

The 1818 tower did not last. The ground under it is glacial till and clay, and it settled and cracked. A replacement went up in 1858 and did the same thing. The tower standing today is the third, built in 1867 in cut sandstone, 49 feet tall, and it is the one that finally stayed put.

It was decommissioned in 1899, when the newer Presque Isle North Pier light and the peninsula station covered the harbor better. The lantern was removed for a period; the tower was later restored and the lantern room replaced.

Local usage separates the two lights: this one, on the mainland, is the Erie Land Lighthouse. The one out on the peninsula is the Presque Isle Lighthouse. They are different stations and visitors mix them up constantly.

What is there now

A small city park on the bluff at the east end of Erie, at the foot of Lighthouse Street. The tower, a keeper’s dwelling that is now a private residence, grass, benches, and a view north over the channel into Presque Isle Bay.

It is not a large attraction and it does not pretend to be. You come, you look at a 160-year-old sandstone tower standing where the first one stood two hundred years ago, you look at the water, and you leave. Twenty minutes.

The City of Erie and local volunteers open the tower for climbs on a limited seasonal schedule — typically summer weekends, sometimes fewer days than that. It is not a reliable drop-in. Check before you plan around it. The grounds are open regardless and free.

Pairing it

The three-lighthouse day is the way to do Erie: Erie Land Lighthouse on the bluff, the Presque Isle North Pier Light at the channel, and the Presque Isle Lighthouse out on the peninsula. All three are within a short drive, and the peninsula is a state park worth the rest of the afternoon anyway.

Downtown, the Bicentennial Tower stands on Dobbins Landing at the end of State Street and gives an elevated view of the bay and the peninsula for a small admission. The Erie Maritime Museum on the bayfront is the home port of the reconstructed brig Niagara, Perry’s relief flagship, when she is in.

Before you turn up

Street parking near the park. Restrooms are not reliable — plan around downtown or the state park.

The bluff edge is open ground above the shoreline; there is no beach access here and no swimming.

The water below

The channel into Presque Isle Bay is the entrance to Pennsylvania’s whole Lake Erie fishery. Walleye, smallmouth bass and yellow perch work the deeper water off the harbor through the summer, and from October into April this is steelhead country — fish staging off the tributary mouths and running Walnut, Elk and Twenty Mile Creeks.

A Lake Erie permit is required on top of a Pennsylvania fishing license to fish Erie and its tributaries. The PA Fish & Boat Commission sets the seasons and limits, and they change annually.