The Oswego Lighthouse Development Committee took part in the City of Oswego's 2011 Fourth of July Parade. Volunteer Ted Panayotoff donned his lightkeeper's uniform for the occasion (Photo courtesy of Ted Panayotoff)
The American Lighthouse Foundation’s newest affiliate – Oswego Lighthouse Development Committee, has been hard at work planning for their light’s restoration and sharing its community importance with the public.
In one of their latest outreach events, the Oswego Lighthouse Development Committee took part in the City of Oswego’s Fourth of July Parade with their lighthouse coming ‘along for the ride’ in the form of a great-looking model of the beacon.
Adding an appropriate historical touch to the scene was Ted Panayotoff who joined other OLDC volunteers by donning his replica U.S. Lighthouse Service keeper’s uniform for the occasion.
Those in the lighthouse community will recall that Ted has been a long-time volunteer for preservation and spent over a decade helping the Friends of Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, a chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation, restore Maine’s Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse to its former glory.
“The model is over ten years old,” said Ted Panayotoff, a member of the Oswego Lighthouse Development Committee, “and was in storage for years.”
Knowing the lighthouse model possessed a value for educational outreach with the public, the committee went to work renewing its ‘shine.’ “We cleaned it up for the parade,” said Panayotoff, “and readied it for ‘inspection’ you might say. The committee hopes to use the lighthouse model again later this summer at other community events.”
Oswego Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse, New York (Photo by Ted Panayotoff)
In addition to actively planning Phase I restoration of the Oswego Lighthouse, the committee is also looking into solutions for safe access at the offshore location. Though the sentinel stands at the end of a 2000-foot-long stone breakwater, the breakwater’s construction is quite irregular and challenging to traverse – making the lighthouse site essentially accessible only by water.
The 1934 Oswego Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse, which has been owned by the City of Oswego, New York, since May 2009 through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, is an important community historic treasure that thankfully has a team of dedicated ‘keepers’ on watch in the form of the City’s Oswego Lighthouse Development Committee.
Stay tuned – more great news on the preservation front at Oswego Lighthouse will no doubt be shining on the horizon in the near future!
