Holland lighthouse struck by vandals

HOLLAND, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – Officials in Ottawa County are looking for those responsible for vandalizing a Holland landmark.

The big red lighthouse in Holland has stood for a century, it's a West Michigan icon, popular with locals and tourists alike, but sometime last week, someone got into the lighthouse and trashed the place.

The Lighthouse Commission maintains Big Red, and the organization says that what the vandals did is both surprising and disheartening. The paint used to preserve Big Red became the tool to damage it.

Investigators believe that in the evening hours of October 7^th or the morning of October 8^th, vandals used a ladder to break a second-floor window. Once inside the lighthouse, the vandals found paint cans and spread red and white paint everywhere, from the basement boiler-room, up the ladders and stairs, all the way to the peak of the lighthouse. The vandals also ripped off metal flag-holders and broke a light at the peak.

Inside the lighthouse, vandals tore apart a display on loan from the Holland Museum, a display valued at $20,000, and left scratch marks in the floor.

The Holland Harbor Lighthouse Commission has maintained Big Red for more than 30 years and calls the damage difficult to understand.

"It's quite surprising to us," said John Gronberg of the Holland Harbor Lighthouse Commission, "this is the first instance, not the first instance of a break-in, but it is the first instance of damage associated with a break-in."

The Ottawa County Sheriff's Department believes the damage was done by juveniles.

"Just based upon my experience in law enforcement, it looks to me like it's kids," said Lt. Mark Bennett of the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department, "it's just kids being mischievous."

The Sheriff's Department has put the cost of damages at several thousand dollars. The Lighthouse Commission believes that repairs will take hundreds of man hours.