St. Joseph City Commissioners are pleased to learn lighthouse tours are going to continue this summer.
Commissioner Tess Ulrey updated the commission this week on her efforts to ensure there’s no interruption in the tours previously managed by the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center. Due to a drastic reduction in Heritage operations, management of the tours falls back to the city, which owns the lighthouse.
Ulrey said, thankfully, the volunteers who man the tours haven’t gone away. They’re ready to get back at it in June.
“What we really, really want to be able to do this year is to ensure that the lighthouse remains open for 2025,” Uley said. “COVID taught us a lot, and I think one thing that it taught us as a community was that if things go away for a year, two years, the likelihood of them coming back just keeps falling off.”
Ulrey said a new partner has been found to take the place of the Heritage Museum to manage the tours.
“The structure that we’re looking at is to be staffed completely by volunteers, but really managed by St. Joseph Today. St. Joseph Today has stepped up to the plate as a partner in this, and they are great at volunteer management, event management. This is really what they do.”
Ulrey said the plan is to run the tours each Saturday in June, July, and August from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It would be free to tour the first floor of the lighthouse, but $5 to tour the upper levels. That was $10 previously.
Ulrey said she wants everyone to come and take a look at the inside of the landmark, telling colleagues a view of the city from its top level is a sight to see.
Commissioners indicated their support for the plan.
