Horseshoe Reef Lighthouse

Not one in a hundred Buffalo area sailors today could name the spidery metal framework that guards the entrance to the swift flowing Niagara River and marking the eastern end of Lake Erie. Fewer still would identify it as a place where men once lived and worked, lost in desolate solitude between two nearby cities. Long neglected and derelict, the offshore relic is seldom visited. Even local Coast Guard personnel, stationed within sight ofthe black iron platform, would be hard pressed to tell the casual visitor its history. No one visits, save the seagulls. The Niagara waters that stream by its base are swift, and the treacherous rocks of a reef lurk just inches below the surface.