MICHIGAN CITY | Harriet Colfax, who tended the Michigan City lighthouse for more than 40 years starting at the time of the Civil War, returned Saturday.

Colfax, in the person of local actor Sandy Gleim, was on hand for the building's 150th birthday bash, wearing a cotton dress dating to the late 1800s and carrying a vintage parasol.

Although Colfax was not unique in her role as a female lighthouse keeper, Gleim said, "It was challenging work."

The job included heating lard -- the fuel for the lights -- and lugging it upstairs to the lantern room and by rowboat to lanterns on the ends of two piers jutting into the lake.

Saturday's event included speeches, a buffet on the grounds and songs of the Great Lakes from folk singer Lee Murdoch.

Now a museum devoted to Michigan City's history, the former lighthouse is home to the large Fresnel lens that guided ships on Lake Michigan from its perch atop the house.

At 40 feet above the shoreline, the lens had a range of 11 to 15 miles, museum director Jackie Glidden said. That was great for ships on the lake, but produced an early form of light pollution for residents of the city.

The problem was solved by fitting the lens with a reflector that shielded residents from the glare while strengthening the beacon lakeward, Glidden said.

Because of a receding Lake Michigan shoreline, the light was moved to a new position at the entrance to the harbor in 1904. The house continued as the keeper's dwelling until 1940, then stood vacant for a quarter century. After transfer to the city, it opened as the Old Lighthouse Museum in 1973.

The museum includes exhibits on Abraham Lincoln's funeral train, which stopped just yards away in 1865, and on the excursion boat Eastland that overturned in Chicago on its way to a day in Michigan City in 1915, killing more than 800 people.

Lots of people know about the city's casino and outlet mall, said Michigan City Historical Society member Fred Miller, who led the planning for Saturday's party.

But the group aims to get more people acquainted with the lighthouse and the stories inside.

"We have other things we're very fond of, too," Miller said.