40 Mile Point Lighthouse
40 Mile Point sits just north of Rogers City and is the location of a 19th-century lighthouse, an extensive rock beach, and a county park. The lighthouse does not mark a harbor, bay, or reef but exists solely to ensure there is no dark area while sailing up Lake Huron to Mackinac. Completed in 1897, the lighthouse contains two identical apartments for the keeper and keeper’s assistant. These were utilized by civilians until the light was absorbed by the Coast Guard in the 1940s and by the Coast Guard until the light was automated in the late 1960s.
After automation, the county was able to create a park around the lighthouse buildings, given they would maintain them, and the Coast Guard continued to maintain the light. The park became extremely popular with locals and tourists alike, but the lighthouse buildings began to deteriorate due to a lack of county funds. By 1996, the lighthouse was declared surplus and faced a meager future, but the county was able to retain ownership of the property with the help of the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse Society. Since 1998, the lighthouse has been restored and maintained by the county and the lighthouse society. Starting just before 1900 all the way through the 1940s, a full time lighthouse keeper and his assistant maintained the property, living in the apartments with their families.
After the county took over, a new keeper moved into one of the apartments with their family, ushering in a new era of lightkeeping on Lake Huron. We were able to meet the keeper, and he told us that his father was actually a keeper of the light as well, and he was continuing on that legacy. There is not much work to keep the light running these days, but they maintain a garden, raise chickens, and keep up classic cars in the parking lot. On our first visit to 40 Mile Point, the lighthouse was not open due to the pandemic, but we did enjoy its beauty and sprawling rock beach. We found a good number of fossils while hunting here and a couple of pudding stones as well.
On our second visit, we were able to tour the lighthouse, all the way from the basement to the top of the light itself. You can tour the lighthouse from Memorial Day through mid-October. The fog signal building has been converted to a picnic area clad with memorabilia and old newspaper clippings, and the pilot house of the SS Calcite is available for viewing as well.
Just down the beach from the lighthouse grounds lies wreckage from the Joseph S. Fay, a wooden steamer built in 1871 that went down during a particularly rough storm in 1905. All but one crew member survived the wreckage due to how close the ship was to the coast. The majority of the wreckage can be seen via boat roughly 300 feet off the shoreline, but one can easily walk 200 yards up the beach to see a piece of the wreckage that was beached many years ago.
We enjoyed our first trip to 40 Mile Point but were blown away by our second trip after the museum, light, and other buildings were reopened. We easily spent 3 hours exploring the grounds, touring the buildings, picking through the gift shop, and walking the rocky beach searching for stones. Whether you are looking for a spot for a quick picnic or have a few hours to kill, 40 Mile Point is the place to be!
