40 Mile Point Lighthouse
40 Mile Point Lighthouse, Rogers City, MI
Rogers City, MI
A tidy black-and-white light on a lonely Lake Huron shore, with the timbers of a lost freighter resting right on its beach.
40 Mile Point Lighthouse stands on a low, wooded point of the Lake Huron shore, named for its distance of forty miles from the mouth of the Detroit River, an old measuring stick used by lake captains. Built in 1896, it is a square brick tower rising from a keeper's dwelling, painted in bold black and white so it could be told apart from other lights along a stretch of coast that ships needed to pass carefully.
What makes this light unusual is what lies on the beach below it. The broken wooden timbers of a lost Great Lakes freighter rest right on the sand, carried ashore over the years, a rare chance to walk up and touch the bones of a nineteenth-century ship. The light, the little museum in the keeper's rooms, and the wreck together tell the story of how dangerous this quiet-looking water once was.
What Guests Love
- Climbing into the tower on open days for a keeper's-eye view down the coast
- Walking the beach to the weathered timbers of the wreck of the Joseph S. Fay
- Touring the restored keeper's quarters filled with local shipping history
- A quiet stretch of shoreline for rock hunting and sunrise over the lake
Worth Knowing
- The grounds and beach are open year round, but the tower and museum keep a seasonal schedule
- The shipwreck timbers are fragile and historic, so look and photograph rather than climb or carry off pieces
- The rocky beach is good for hunting Petoskey stones and fossils, so bring shoes that can get wet
- It is a county park, donation-based inside the tower, and staffed by volunteers, so patience and a thank-you go a long way
Details
Rogers City, MI
Learn about 40 Mile Point Lighthouse
A light for a dangerous coast
This part of Lake Huron, from Rogers City north toward the Straits of Mackinac, was a busy and hazardous shipping lane in the age of wooden steamers and schooners. Storms blew up fast, the shore offered few safe harbors, and countless vessels carrying lumber, coal, limestone, and grain passed the point every season. A light here helped captains fix their position and keep off the shallows in the dark.
Congress funded the station and it first shone in 1896. A keeper and his family lived in the attached brick dwelling, tending the lamp through the night, keeping the lens polished, and logging the weather and the passing ships. Like most Great Lakes lights it was eventually automated and the keepers went home, but the county later took it on as a park, and volunteers restored the quarters and reopened the tower to visitors.
The wreck on the beach
The timbers scattered on the beach come from the Joseph S. Fay, a wooden steam freighter that broke apart in a fierce October storm in 1905 while trying to shelter along this shore. The vessel came to pieces and its crew struggled to reach land, a common and often deadly story on these lakes before modern forecasting and radio.
A large section of the ship's wooden hull came ashore near the lighthouse and has stayed there ever since, half-buried and weathered by the waves. It is one of the few places on the Great Lakes where you can walk right up to a piece of a lost freighter without a boat or diving gear. The wood is old and fragile, so it is meant to be seen and photographed, not climbed on or carried away.
The keeper's life and the museum today
Inside the restored dwelling, the museum recreates the daily round of a lighthouse keeper's family: the rooms they lived in, the tools they used, and the long, careful ritual of keeping a light burning night after night through fog and gale. Displays trace the shipping that made this coast matter, the limestone trade out of Rogers City, and the many wrecks that ended nearby.
Climbing the tower rewards you with the view the keepers watched every day, the long curve of the Huron shore, the deep blue of the open lake, and the little harbor towns strung along it. Because the station is run by volunteers and a county parks system, its indoor hours are seasonal, so it is worth checking before a special trip, though the grounds and beach stay open all year.
The Sunrise Coast around it
This is Lake Huron's Sunrise Coast, a quieter, less-crowded shoreline than the Lake Michigan side of the state, and its beaches are famous among rock hounds. The gravel here is rich in fossils and in Petoskey stones, the fossil-coral state stone of Michigan, and a slow walk with your eyes down usually turns up a keeper.
Nearby Rogers City lives partly by one of the largest limestone quarries in the world, whose freighters still load stone at the harbor, a direct link to the shipping past the lighthouse once guarded. The land here is Anishinaabe homeland, held today by the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Potawatomi peoples of the region, whose ancestors traveled and fished these same shores long before the lights were built.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Rogers City
Rogers City
About 6 miles west
A small Lake Huron harbor town with lakefront parks, a nautical museum, and a view of the giant limestone quarry and its freighters.
Presque Isle Lighthouses
About 15 miles southeast
A pair of historic lights, old and new, on a wooded point, one of them climbable, with a small keeper's museum.
Ocqueoc Falls
About 25 miles northwest
The Lower Peninsula's largest named waterfall, a gentle limestone cascade with a swimming hole and shaded trails.
Herman Vogler Conservation Area
About 7 miles west
A quiet preserve near Rogers City with trails, a pond, and wildflower meadows along the Trout River.