Coast Guard honors Mr. Lighthouse

ROCKLAND – Being in the limelight is nothing new for the man hailed as Mr. Lighthouse, neither is receiving awards from the U.S. Coast Guard.

For retired Chief Warrant Officer Ken Black, who built Maine’s Lighthouse Museum from the ground up, however, the Coast Guard’s Public Service Commendation for lifetime achievement presented to him Wednesday was very obviously something different.

The usually boisterous Black was almost speechless.

“That’s not like you to stand up there a minute or minute and a half,” longtime friend Hiram Brown, former owner of the Wayfarer Hotel and Restaurant, told Black after the award ceremony at the Winslow-Holbrook-Merritt American Legion.

The legion hall was packed with more than 100 well-wishers – many with connections to lighthouses, including artist Jamie Wyeth, and Peter Ralston and Philip Conkling of the Island Institute, which administered the Maine Lights Program.

There were also plenty of politicians on hand to recognize the Union resident for his remarkable work in creating a lighthouse collection that is second to none.

“It’s a rare thing,” Coast Guard Ensign John Hanley, public affairs officer at Group Southwest Harbor, said of the prestigious Public Service Commendation.

After retiring from the Coast Guard in 1973, “Ken Black took his liking for lighthouses a little further,” Capt. Scott Keene said, “that’s why we’re here today.”

Keene, who resides at Nobska Light in Woods Hole, Mass., was representing Rear Adm. Vivian Crea, commander of the First Coast Guard District, which stretches from Eastport to the northern part of New Jersey. Keene is chief of the district’s Aids to Navigation and Waterways Management Branch in Boston.

“The admiral sends her regards,” Keene told Black.

From the time Black, 80, first spotted a lighthouse postcard in Port Clyde during a visit here in the early 1970s, his passion with lighthouses has stayed a steady course.

At that time, Black started a small display of lighthouse memorabilia at Rockland Station, where he served as commander. Soon, other people were adding to the collection.

One thing led to another and before long, the First District commander designated Black curator of the First Coast Guard District Marine Exhibit, which was housed in the downstairs of the old Coast Guard station on the Tillson Avenue pier.

Given carte blanche to take whatever artifacts he wanted from district stations, the younger Black dropped the admiral’s name wherever he went to beg, borrow and – some say – steal Coast Guard and lighthouse relics.

At Wednesday’s ceremony, Capt. Harry Haynes said Black had a “license to steal.”

Around the same time Black retired, so did America’s lighthouses.

One by one, the Coast Guard unmanned the lighthouses and switched the operation of beacons to automated systems.

“It was during this period of automating lighthouses that Ken Black provided a valuable service,” Keene said. “Ken saw the historical significance in the Fresnel lenses and other lighthouse artifacts.

“On his own initiative, he sought approval and collected many of the artifacts that are now on display at the Shore Village Museum, which is filled with more than 570 rare lighthouse artifacts. We are all very fortunate that Ken saved these artifacts for future generations to view.”

In October, the museum will close at its present location and move to the former Courier Publications building on Rockland’s waterfront, where a new Maine Lighthouse Museum will be housed at what will be the Gateway Center.