Saving the Highland Lighthouse
The first Highland Lighthouse was a wooden structure constructed in 1797, built a safe distance of over 500 feet from the cliff edge. The gradual erosion of the cliff resulted in the Lighthouse standing an uncomfortable one hundred feet from the edge by the 1990’s, forcing attention to be turned towards moving the lighthouse back to a safer distance. Smith tells visitors the story of why the Highland Light needed to be moved:
The original lighthouse in this site was in 1797 on land that has long since eroded away and then there was another lighthouse, an interim lighthouse built prior to the building of this one in 1857. That lighthouse served until 1996 when it was quite clear that while the lighthouse itself wouldn’t fall over the cliff it was only a matter of time before that would happen. Plus it was reaching the critical point in terms of bringing in all of the equipment that would be necessary to move the lighthouse. So in 1996 after literally six years of meetings, negotiations and fundraising the lighthouse was moved.
Prediction of the location of the Highland cliff edge in 2197 based on the rate of change over the past 200 years.
Gerard Smith speaking with visitors about the Highland Lighthouse move.
Dave Donaldson, another docent at the lighthouse explains that moving something of this scale was going to require a lot of money that was not going to be federally funded initially, prompting a grassroots effort to begin fundraising the money. After being told by the National Seashore that plans were in place to dismantle it when it got too close to the edge, residents asked what they could do to save it and were told:
“Collect a lot of money.” So they collected money over the course of the next five years, they got $150,000… for a million and a half dollars the International Chimney Moving Company of Buffalo, NY came here and laid three poles to the base… vaulted it all up in one piece, put it on rails and with compressors, jacks and ivory soap as a greaser moved it 453 feet.
Dave Donaldson at the top of the Highland Light.
Smith elaborates on the way in which this dedicated group of volunteers raised the initial $150,000, prompting them to be able to seek state and federal monies:
The initial funding came out of a group of people that started raising money locally by selling t-shirts, everything they could think of, cranberries. I mean it was an enormously broad based community effort of people and then because that fundraising was moving well they were more readily able to approach both the state and federal governments and they paid the bulk of it. It was a real collaborative effort … they got the cooperation of the coastguard and the seashore who owned the property in order to make the move possible and continued opening it to the public.
The rallying of an impassioned group of individuals is what saved this lighthouse. As evidenced, stakeholder preferences are able to influence the prioritization of resources if strongly voiced, illustrating the potential always for a cooperative relationship between the NPS and stakeholders. I noticed in my experience working for the NPS that it was a high priority to listen and respond to resident’s viewpoints and most importantly to create more transparency by helping users of the park understand management decisions, which helps diffuse negative attitudes directed at the park. Active examples of this in action included hosting open forums for community members to be able to voice opinions about proposed projects and interpreters educating beach users about why sections of beach would be closed off at different times to protect threatened species like Piping Plovers or Spade Foot Toads. More passive means included erecting signage, informing people about current NPS projects or why they should stay on marked trails because of the fragility of dune grass and the potential to further erode the dunes.
Friesen Rolls the Lighthouse
The rolling of the Highland Lighthouse drew countless visitors as it was gradually moved over an 18 day period. The move capitalized upon the national significance of saving a historical lighthouse and engaged the community, which had been thematically present from the very beginning with the grassroots campaign that made it possible for it to be moved.
Visitors come to see the lighthouse be rolled during its 18 day move.
The move, Smith explains was made possible by the invention of a new rolling technique invented by Pete Friesen, a master structural mover. Without this technique the move would have been nearly impossible since the lighthouse is made of brick, making it more difficult to stabilize and move via traditional methods:
[it] was really made possible by this remarkable invention by a man named Pete Friesen of a hydraulic roller device. Theoretically if you had the power and the beams and the rollers you could move a structure of any size.
The capacity of this technology is nearly limitless, as Pete Friesen, “the acknowledged top structural mover in the world”[i] has conducted numerous ‘mega-moves’. Many of these moves would have been inconceivable without this hydraulic system that is able to carefully lift and roll a building to a new location. In the documentary “Pete: Moving Manmade Mountains”, which chronicles his life and accomplishments, he is described as:
the brilliant engineer and artist who designed the equipment and directed the most famous mega-moves of the 20th century. Without the equipment Pete designed, without the creative engineering mind Pete has been blessed with, many of America’s great historic buildings would have been destroyed.[ii]
After being brought in to move the Highland Lighthouse, Pete went on to move lighthouses in Nauset, Block Island and Cape Hadderas, enacting his philosophy that “If it’s built by man, man can move it. If it’s built by God, like a mountain or something, that’s another story.”[iii] This philosophy has been similarly predominant on the Cape, as moving homes and structures of this scale have been part of the cultural and architectural history of the Cape. Smith goes onto explain that while:
…this was certainly the biggest building ever moved on Cape Cod but only one of hundreds or perhaps even a thousand buildings that have been moved be it houses, motels, hotels, you name it, it’s been moved, and reused.
The movement of this lighthouse and many others is in keeping with the structural tradition of moving on Cape Cod, although the Highland Lighthouse holds the record for being the largest structure moved to date.
[i] Pete – Moving Manmade Mountains. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.petethemovie.com/The_Movie.htm>.
[ii] Pete – Moving Manmade Mountains. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.petethemovie.com/The_Movie.htm>.
[iii] “Pete Friesen a mover of manmade monuments.” Canada.com – Breaking news‚ Canada‚ World‚ Weather‚ Travel‚ Video & more. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=06d16ea4-a0da-494e-841f-2b1dc18e5076&k=45035>.
