Pilot House to Go to the Auction House

Well, it was noted in the local news media recently that it's a done deal that the Wakefield mansion in Vermilion (as well as the rest of the former Inland Seas Maritime Museum) will be demolished. It’s too bad.

News reports also pointed out that the pilot house, attached to the former museum, will be auctioned off as it has been declared “an unwanted piece of city property."

Since it had been decades since I visited the museum, I wondered: what pilot house? None of the newspapers bothered to provide a photo, so I paid a visit to the site with my camera earlier this week to refresh my memory.

Oh, that pilot house. It’s pretty cool and I hope somebody buys it.

The Canopus in action
(courtesy of AbeBooks.com, which
has this photo for sale)

So what’s the story behind it? It's the original 1905 pilot house from the lake freighter Canopus. 

According to a 2016 article on Cleveland.com written by our friend Michael Sangiacomo of the Plain Dealer, the pilot house had been used as a playroom by its former owner before it was donated to the museum.

It was intended to be sold back in 2016, after the Museum had moved to Toledo, but apparently that didn’t happen.

A recent article in the Morning Journal said that for a little while, the plan was for Vermilion to hold on to it. But according to Mayor Jim Forthofer, it was going to cost too much money to move it and store it. 

In the end, the city will not have to pay for its removal from the former museum building, but will collect the money made from auctioning it off. Not a bad deal.

Anyway, here are a few more photos of the pilot house, before it is permanently set adrift in our collective memories.