Michigan Lights - Sturgeon Point

Sturgeon Point Lighthouse on Lake Huron. 9/16/2019 (dwm)

We missed the active season for the Sturgeon Point lighthouse last September when we stopped - the house and tower is only open during the summer.

Thankfully, the grounds of the Point were open to visitors.

I found a Monarch Butterfly resting on the grass, and got some pictures of it with the house in the background (below right).

The damp day may have grounded the Monarch, I left him to recover.

Butterfly and Light.
9/16/2019 dwm photo

The shutters on the keeper's quarters were closed for winter - creating the appearance of an old station at rest.

At its peak, after going online in 1871, the light warned captains of the shallow point and filled in a dark gap of shoreline between Tawas Point and Thunder Bay Island.  (We visited the Tawas Point light and will see it in this collection.  The light on the island is only visible from the air or by boat.)

Sturgeon Point's lantern. 9/16/19 (dwm)

Behind the house are pieces from ships that wrecked off Sturgeon Point.

In 1880, the steamer known as the Marine City was heading from Mackinaw south to Detroit when it caught fire.

Two boats in the area quickly rescued most of the 160 passengers and crew except for 20 who panicked before rescuers arrived and jumped ship.  The Marine City rudder is a silent witness behind the house near other shipwreck artifacts.

A piece of the Marine
City.  9/16/19 (dwm)

A life saving station added four years before the wreck of the Marine City assisted with the rescue and many other ships in distress before its duties were picked up by other Coast Guard stations in the 20th century.

Near the light, is a transplanted one-room schoolhouse.  It's the Bailey School from Mikado, Michigan where it was built to serve children of the lumbermen
who harvested trees in the area.

Classes were dismissed
at the Bailey School.
9/16/19 (dwm)

It was dismantled and moved piece by piece to the Sturgeon Point park in 1998 where students and visitors can get their own one-room school experience.

Looking from the outside in, it appears to be waiting for the school teacher and their students to show up.

In the late spring, I bet a lot students show up to learn local Michigan history - the lighthouse protecting boats on the water; old wood boats on site that remain from the times when commercial fishing was a big business on Lake Huron; and life in a country school.

The Lighthouse Friends page doesn't have anything to say about the school, but has interesting tales about the light keepers between 1870 and 1913.

See more lighthouses in Michigan and Wisconsin by following this link.