- Coordinates
- 45.6071° N, 85.4970° WGoogle Maps: Beaver Island Lake Survey towerDownload KML
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- cartographyinfrastructuremaritimegovernmentheritage
- Within
- Beaver Island
- Media
- Beaver Island History Map, 1978 revision
Summary
A U.S. Lake Survey triangulation station and tower stood on the high ground north of the historically named Cole’s Bay. The National Geodetic Survey’s QK0802 datasheet supplies unusually strong federal corroboration for the 1978 map’s “Federal Lake Survey Tower” annotation: the Lake Survey monumented the station in 1860, described it in 1925, and found an old tower and tripod in ruins during a failed recovery in 1965.1
The evidence does not show that the tower itself was built in 1860. That year dates the survey monument. Until a field book, tower log, or construction record is found, “1860 Lake Survey station; tower later documented in ruins” is the most precise supported chronology.
Federal survey record
QK0802 is designated BEAVER ISLAND and carries a first-order horizontal position. The 1925 Lake Survey description places its spike and rounded concrete monument on the east side of Beaver Island, on the highest hill north of Cole’s Bay, with two reference trees. In 1965 the Lake Survey could find neither the station nor its reference marks; all reference trees were destroyed, while the “old tower and tripod” survived only as ruins.1
The station postdates the U.S. Lake Survey’s 1854–55 work embodied in North End of Lake Michigan Including the Beaver Island Group, 1855 Lake Survey chart. That chart is important regional context, but it should not be cited as depicting a tower or monument established in 1860.
Open questions
- When was the tower erected, rebuilt, and abandoned?
- Was it an observing tower, a signal tower, or both at different times?
- Do the 1860 field book, 1925 description file, or 1965 recovery photographs survive in federal records?
- Can physical remnants be matched to QK0802 without disturbing the site?
See also
Footnotes
Sources
- Official federal record. Gives a first-order adjusted position; says the U.S. Lake Survey monumented the station in 1860, described it in good condition in 1925, and failed to find the mark in 1965. The 1925 description places it on the highest hill north of Cole's Bay. The 1965 recovery found an old tower and tripod in ruins. It does not date the tower itself.
- Statewide official text archive used to verify the complete QK0802 description and recovery history independently of the interactive display.
- Described in this archive: Beaver Island History Map, 1978 revision.Labels a Federal Lake Survey Tower at approximately this part of the island. The map does not cite a source or state construction and abandonment dates.
Added 7 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Beaver Island Lake Survey tower”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/structures/beaver-island-lake-survey-tower/, accessed [date], citing National Geodetic Survey, datasheet QK0802, designation BEAVER ISLAND, retrieved 7 August 2026. (and 2 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-07. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Beaver Island Lake Survey tower”RIS for “Beaver Island Lake Survey tower”