Wisconsin District News

To Rev Mike Schmalz
In Appreciation for Dedicated Leadership
Wisconsin District UPCI Home Missionaries

Bro. and Sis. Schmalz

Ralph Russell Tinkham

Ralph Russell Tinkham enjoyed the challenge of building lighthouses in remote, inaccessible areas. As a junior engineer of the U.S. lighthouse establishment, he was sailing up the North Shore as an assistant on the Rock of Ages Light project off Isle Royale when the ship he was on passed an isolated cliff of anthracite rock, poised like a sentinel above the waters of Lake Superior.

He didn’t know it at the time, but the construction of Split Rock Light Station at that point would consume almost 1 1/2 years of his life and catapult his career with the newly renamed U.S. Lighthouse Service. He did all the architectural work, figured out material and labor needs, and watched over the construction on site, living in the upstairs of the first storage barn after its completion early in 1909.

By the time of his retirement in 1946, Tinkham had become the chief engineer of the entire U.S. Lighthouse Service, and had planned and watched over the construction of stations in Hawaii and Alaska, among others.

Engineering

The construction of Split Rock Lighthouse was an engineering feat in an organization already known for building structures in remote locations.

The first challenge in the spring of 1909 was erecting a steam-powered hoist and derrick for lifting supplies off the supply boats on the lake, more than 110 feet below. A construction crew of 35 to 50 men had to be supplied by boat through the entire construction period using this method. Three hundred ten tons of building materials were hoisted over the length of the construction period without a major accident.

The construction workers stayed in canvas tents on the open cliff top as construction proceeded. The construction firm of L.D. Campbell & Son of Duluth supplied all the construction labor necessary – carpenters, brick masons, demolition men for dynamiting the hard rock of the cliff for foundations, and common laborers collected from all over the Great Lakes region — to assemble a light station at one of the most remote places one had ever been built.

By the time Split Rock Light Station was completed in mid summer 1910, workers had spent 13 months on the desolate cliff, with only a break during the worst months of winter. They were exposed to the elements and connected to civilization only by occasional supply boat visits. When the light was first lit on July 31, 1910, it stood as a monument to the will of the men who built it, as much as an aid to navigation.

Missions of Today

Ralph Tinkham and his fellow laborers endured harsh and unwelcome environments and spent weeks, months and years to build a beacon of light that would be a guide to the iron ore ships that sailed around the remote shores of the northern Great Lakes. The need was great as over 22 ships met there demise in the northern coastal waters of lake superior before the Split Rock light house was erected and put into service.

There is a great analogy that we can draw from this story and apply it to the modern day building of Home Mission churches in remote untouched areas of Wisconsin. Like Ralph Tinkham we know that it takes the vision of a solid organization and a leader who is willing to take the vision and make it a reality. The Home Missions team under the leadership of Rev Michael Schmalz is doing such a work. As home missionaries we find ourselves much like the lighthouse construction laborers in remote and alone areas at times. But then there is the supply ships of Home Missions support that come to the missionaries aid combined with great leadership such as Mike Schmalz that assists the man of God, the Home Missionary, complete the task of building an Apostolic Gospel Lighthouse in his city of calling. Knowing light houses were erected successfully around the Great lakes for the preservation of life on the dangerous waters of the Great Lakes how much more noble is the goal of building 100 Apostolic Churches (Lighthouses) around the state of Wisconsin by 2010.

To show our appreciation to Rev Michael Schmalz director of the Wisconsin District Home Missions Department, the Home Missionaries of Wisconsin would like to express our appreciation to him and his wife for dedicated leadership. We would like to present to Bro. & Sis Michael Schmalz an original water color painting of the Split Rock Lighthouse painted by artist Peg Sandin and a copy of a “Pictorial Guide to the Lighthouses of the Great Lakes”.

The presentation to Bro. and Sis. Schmalz at Family Camp

Picture and report submitted by Bro. Morey, Waupaca