Frankfort Harbor

What makes Frankfort's harbor distinctive is its shape. Two breakwaters, a north and a south, reach out from the shore and converge to form a broad arrowhead-shaped outer basin, which in turn shelters the narrow channel that runs inland from Lake Michigan into Betsie Lake. Because the harbor mouth reaches so far out into the big lake, it stays unusually free of the pack ice that clogs other ports, and the inner basin of Betsie Lake gives boats some of the snuggest storm protection on this whole stretch of coast.

At the outer end of the north breakwater stands the light everyone photographs. The current red steel tower rises about sixty-seven feet, and it has a story of its own: the lantern room began life in 1912 on the old north pier, and when the breakwater was rebuilt it was lifted onto a taller square steel base and moved out to its present spot, so an early-1900s light now watches over the modern harbor. The walk out to it is a little over a quarter mile of open pier, with Lake Michigan on one side and the harbor on the other.

Right beside the north breakwater, at the foot of the town's main street, lies Frankfort's public beach, a wide crescent of soft sand that slopes gently into clear, cold water. It is a proper town beach, with restrooms, a playground, beach swings, and room to spread out, and it draws swimmers and sandcastle builders all summer while the pier walkers stream past toward the light.

Because the beach and pier face due west into the open lake, Frankfort has become known for its sunsets, the kind that turn the whole sky and the water and the red tower to gold and rose. Locals and visitors gather on the sand and along the breakwater in the evening to watch the sun drop straight into Lake Michigan, and it is one of the simple, free pleasures that make a night in a harbor town worth it.

Frankfort's snug harbor gave it an outsized role in Great Lakes history. In the lumber era it was a busy port for schooners hauling timber out of the north woods. Then, in 1892, the Ann Arbor Railroad reached the harbor and launched something the world had never seen: the Ann Arbor No. 1, the first ferry ever built to carry loaded railroad freight cars across open water rather than unloading and reloading their cargo.

The railcar ferries sailed from a slip on the Elberta side of Betsie Lake, just across from Frankfort, and over the decades they crossed to ports all around the lake, from Kewaunee and Manitowoc in Wisconsin to points on Michigan's own Upper Peninsula. For nearly a century the sight of a huge black car ferry easing through the breakwaters was part of daily life here, until the service finally ended in 1982.

That deep-water past is why the harbor still feels like a real working place rather than only a pretty view. You can read the story at the local historical museum in town, then walk the same channel the great ferries once threaded, and picture a train riding out onto the lake.

Frankfort lies on the Lake Michigan shore in Benzie County, an easy drive west from Beulah and Crystal Lake and roughly forty minutes southwest of Traverse City. The public beach and the breakwater sit right at the west end of the town's main street, with parking and services close by, so it is one of the most walkable harbors on the coast.

Give yourself an unhurried afternoon and evening. Walk out the north breakwater to the light, letting the wind and the open water do their work, then come back to the beach, swim if you are brave enough for the cold, and stay for the sunset. It is the kind of honest Great Lakes stop, part history, part beach, part big-water horizon, that a good northern-Michigan road trip is built around.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.