1887 Pentwater Life-Saving/Coast Guard Station

Pentwater was among the few small harbors with an active Coast Guard Station in 1953. It was part of the Ninth District, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The Coast Guard began in the pre-Civil War years on the Massachusetts Coast as a volunteer network and gradually gained government support. By 1871, a lawyer, Sumner Increase Kimball led what was then called the new U.S. Life-Saving Service, an agency of the Department of the Treasury which included lighthouse activities. Sumner's agency was known for honesty, efficiency, a stable non-partisan administration, and strong performance. By 1875, the agency extended Life-Saving services to the Great Lakes. The Pentwater Life-Saving Station opened in 1887.

In those days, schooners, packet steamers, and passenger steamers like the Kansas, Missouri, and Pere Marquette Steamship line filled the harbor. Ships tied up along the piers lining the channel. Tugboats managed the traffic. Captain Martin Ewald was the first to head up the new life-saving station after being reassigned from his Manistee Station duties. In his official journal,  Ewald commented on the primitive nature of the recently constructed station, describing it as a small painted structure on the sand with no grass or trees. When he arrived, the Captain had to assemble the stove to heat the place. His wife, Ida Sanford Ewald, joined him in April and began cooking for the station's crew. April to November was the “active season,” with just a caretaker during the winter months.  Some crew members considered it a lifetime career, and duties included walking the beach from Pentwater several miles to the north and monitoring the lake from the lookout tower.  The rigorous nature of the rescues required precision speed drills, and launching and manning the lifeboats, which frequently drew a crowd. Early crew members included Eli E. Pugh, later Coast Guard Station Chief Peter Jensen, and Chauncey D. Pool. Wrecks were common, as seen in the June 8, 1898, Buffalo (New York) Times article headed "This Year's Wrecks," including reports from Escanaba, Vermillion Point, Sturgeon Bay, and Pentwater, where Captain Ewald reported on the I.M. Forrest, embedded in the sands confirming that it was not a danger to navigation.

On March 24, 1913, Captain Ewarld made the last entry of his Pentwater Station log, and he and Lucy retired in Pentwater and were active in community affairs. In 1915, a new law created by the Coast Guard also provided for the retirement of the well-respected Kimball. At that time pleasure boat traffic replaced earlier commercial activity. The stations brought on motorboats to better handle recreational boat emergencies, and swimmer rescues were common. The vagaries of congressional funding called for frequent changes in station status. In 1921, the Pentwater Life-Saving Station went on the inactive list with a reduced crew. The Pentwater Citizen Association saved the crew with a protest resolution and request for reinstatement. In 1928, the work included rescuing two boys on a raft a mile north of the channel and a half-mile from the beach. During the 1930s, the Station remained open with a skeleton crew. Channel dredging was a problem until the early 1940s when the Station became a harbor of refuge. It reopened with a full crew training for wartime service.

Pentwater’s history includes the wreck of over 40 vessels off Pentwater beaches, including those lost in the 1940 Armistice Day storm clocking in with winds of 85-110 miles per hour— the Wm. B. Davoc, Anna C. Minch, with all hands lost, and the Novadoc grounded on the rocks at Juniper Beach, south of Pentwater. Local fishermen rescued the last seventeen members of the crew still on board. The ship’s compass, valued at $400, was returned by unknown persons, wrapped in burlap, and stashed in a nail keg on the porch of a house next door to the Coast Guard Station. That day was Wednesday, November 27, 1940, and it coincided with an official hearing of inquiry. In December, the Pentwater station crew size was increased by four to patrol the beach for bodies washing ashore. Residents reported the gruesome sightings of bodies for quite a while after the storm. Two tugboats were also lost.

After World War II, the station was closed and reopened between 1948 and 1950. The station had a crew of five in 1953 who kept a 24-hour watch. By June 1954, the station was designated a mooring unit but local pressure kept it open, and it only closed in the winter when the crew was temporarily transferred to the Ludington station. The motor lifeboat was sent to Milwaukee for an engine overhaul and repairs.

Finally, in 1958, the old frame building that housed offices, living quarters, equipment and boats was scheduled for demolition.  Although assurances were received that there would be no curtailing of Coast Guard service at the Pentwater Harbor. The Coast Guard claimed the building was beyond saving and that there was no budget for restoration. Today, no doubt a campaign to fund a restoration project would certainly be launched, although even today, there is no guarantee that it would succeed. The Pentwater Coast Guard station was formally decommissioned and closed in 1959. That year, approximately 500 boats, mostly fishing and pleasure boats were logged in and out of the channel.

Sources:

“Captain M.R. Ewald Tells the Story of Pentwater Harbor,” Ludington Daily News 4/10/1934. “Close Station at Pentwater,” Ludington Daily News 12/10/1948.” Missing Compass Found on Steps,” Ludington Daily News 11/28/1940. “Pentwater Coast Guard Section Close Successful Year,” Ludington Daily News 1/5/1920.  “Pentwater C.G. Station Closes,” Ludington Daily News 10/26/1956.”Pentwater Crew Increased by Four,” Ludington Daily News 12/5/1940.  “Pentwater Station Established in ‘87,” Ludington Daily News 1/2/1953. “Protest removal of Guard Station,” Grand Rapids Press July 14, 1921.  “Reports of Last Year’s Wrecks,” Buffalo Times 6/8/1898. “Represenative Engel Working to Reopen Station” by Leonore P. Williams, Ludington Daily News 1/10/1949. “To Raze Pentwater Station; Is on Mooring Status” by Leonore P. Williams, Ludington Daily News 10/4/1958. “Two boys adrift…,” Ludington Day News 7/5/2028.