Photo Gallery Friday: Sturgeon Point Lighthouse Historic Site

Photo Gallery Friday is a regular feature on Travel the Mitten that will help showcase photos from places where a few pictures just aren’t enough to show off everything.

The Sturgeon Point Lighthouse near Harrisville warns boaters of a dangerous reef that extends out from the point. Like Tawas Point Lighthouse to the south, this is one of Michigan’s few Cape Cod style lights, resembling those on the East Coast more than others on the Great Lakes. Today visitors can tour the lighthouse and check out many pieces of maritime history at the Sturgeon Point Historic Site (Michigan DNR), operated by the Alcona Historical Society.

The Sturgeon Point Lighthouse was built in 1869. It features a 71 foot tall conical tower that is painted white and capped with a red lantern room. The attached two-story keeper’s dwelling also features a white paint scheme with red trim. At one point a Life Saving Station also operated here until the light was automated in the 1940s. A brick outhouse is one of the few other buildings that survives to this day.

The keeper’s house is now open as a museum open on summer weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day. There is a small fee to climb the lighthouse tower. The Old Bailey School, an early 1900s one-room schoolhouse from a nearby community, has been restored by the Alcona Historical Society and can be reached from the same parking lot. The Sturgeon Point Lighthouse was stop 11 on our Ultimate Michigan Lighthouse Road Trip: Lower Peninsula.

To get to the lighthouse from US-23 just north of Harrisville, turn east onto Lakeshore Drive. Follow this road for a little over a mile, then turn east on Point Road. Follow this road almost to its end and then look for the sign for the lighthouse and parking area on the left.