Smallest lake with a bona fide lighthouse?

Factual Questions
1

Anybody know what the smallest lake with a bona fide active lighthouse (automated or otherwise), used for actual navigation (rather than a vanity lighthouse) is?

My cursory research has come up with Lake Winnebago as a candidate, at 215 square miles. It actually has 4 lighthouses on it. But I’ll be surprised if there aren’t much smaller ones.

Lake Mendota, 15 square miles, seems to have had one at one time, but I can’t find any reference to it being active any longer.

I exclude small bays which are connected to larger bodies of water from my calculations.

I include lakes which are connected by navicable rivers to larger bodies of water.

I also exclude lighthouses on rivers, even at wide parts like the Mississippi’s Lake Pepin. River size is too arbitrary for me to include it in this quest of mine.

Thanks for your help!

2

Lake Sunapee, NH seems to have a lighthouse “up and running”:

http://www.thelighthousepeople.com/new_hampshire/nh5_burkehaven.html

It’s one of three:

http://www.quackenbos.com/lspa/article_lighthouse.asp

The largest lake in New Hampshire (Winnipesaukee) is 72 square miles, so Sunapee must be less than that.

I found that by glancing through this listing. I stopped in the Bs, however, so you may continue if you like:

http://www.lighthousedepot.com/database/databasedetail.cfm

3

Oh, and I searched on keyword “lake”.

4

Sunapee is a pretty small lake, looking at a map:

I’d estimate about 8 square miles. It pretty much fits inside a 2 by 8 mile rectangle, and covers about half of it.

5

Prairie Creek Reservoir, just SW of Muncie, Indiana, has a working lighthouse (automated) next to a rocky shoal at the mouth of the Sailing Club Harbor. The lake is manmade, and it’s about 3 mi. long x 1 mi. wide. I’ll see if I can scare up a link to a picture.

6

Here’s link. http://www.usalights.com/other/coopers/

7

Thanks, guys!

That’s a fascinating lighthouse site, yabob. I’ll be spending more time there.

Sorry, AskNott but I think I’ll have to consider Sunapee the smallest lake with a lighthouse used for navigation so far. It’s part of the state navigation system. Your candidate on the reservoir is quite charming, and it’s something I’d enjoy putting up on my lake, but it doesn’t seem to be meant for navigation but rather more for fun and for a memorial.

8

AskNott’s lighthouse is listed in that database, but so are some clearly ornamental lighthouses. If people do recreational boating on that reservoir, and use a signal in that lighthouse as a landmark, I might be inclined to count it. It’s going to depend on what you want to consider “navigational”. I DID skip over this:

http://www.cantonmaine.com/canton/lhouse1.htm

That’s also charming, but pretty obviously decorative. Lake Anasagunticook seems to have been formerly known as “Canton Pond” and is on the order of 1/2 mi wide and 1 mile long. The “current use” listed in the DB is “part of a private home”.

9

Point taken, yabob. Even so, having grown up watching the Iron Boats go, I tend to think of a lighthouse as being official if it is in place to aid ships and boats in avoiding treacherous areas which might tend to sink or ground said sailing vessel.

I also tend to think of them as being established by governmental agencies which have been charged with improving maritime safety.

Granted, that still leaves a lot of wiggle room. But when I put a searchlight on the top of my house so I can find my house again after dark (which I have done, anticipating an evening of late boating) I don’t consider my house a lighthouse.