BEAVER ISLAND, MI — At Whiskey Point, the world is red.
Tinted windows atop a 153-year-old light tower guarding the harbor give the surroundings an unearthly contrast. Ascending black spiral stairs up the white cylindrical tower into the red enclosure is a spooky experience.
The tower, officially named the Beaver Island Harbor Light, is one of two historic lighthouses on the island but is the only one still performing its intended function.
“It’s affectionately referred to as Whiskey Point Lighthouse on the island,” said Lori Taylor-Blitz, president of the Beaver Island Historical Society. “It’s still an active, working tower.”
The Whiskey Point light was built in 1870 as the second lighthouse constructed on the peninsula protruding into the north side of the harbor, named for an early trading post that dealt in spirits. The first lighthouse there was built in 1856, the same year James Jesse Strang, a self-declared Mormon “king,” was fatally wounded on the island.
The tower is 41 feet tall and stands alone in a field near what was formerly a U.S. Coast Guard station that is now owned by Central Michigan University, which operates a biological station and Institute for Great Lakes Research on the island.
The lighthouse was built to guide new and larger vessel traffic into the harbor to increase its effectiveness as a port and refuge during a time of increasing lumber shipments through the Manitou Passage, according to research by late Great Lakes lighthouse historian Terry Pepper.
The tower once adjoined a keeper’s house, which was demolished in the 1940s. The light was automated in 1927 and the original Fourth Order Fresnel Lens was removed in 2016; replaced with a digital light. The red light blinks every six seconds and can be seen from up to 12 miles away.
The tower is owned by St. James Township and underwent significant restoration work in 2013. It is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the summer.
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The other lighthouse, Beaver Head, is about 17 miles south.
Built in 1858, the Beaver Head Lighthouse is one of the oldest on the Great Lakes. It includes an attached keeper’s home and nearby fog signal building. The 46-foot cylindrical tower is situated on a high bluff over Lake Michigan.
The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1962 and was owned by Charlevoix Public Schools for years. In 2019, Charlevoix County and Networks Northwest, a regional workforce development agency, jointly acquired the property and a nearby alternative high school complex for at-risk students that closed in 2016 for $215,000.
The county, Networks Northwest and Beaver Island Historical Society are currently working with Eastern Michigan University on a historic preservation effort at the lighthouse.
“Our goals would be to restore at least the lower level of the building and then open it up as a museum,” said Taylor-Blitz.
The tower portion of the lighthouse is open to the public year-round. More than 10,000 people have signed a guest log.
“You can come into the tower anytime. It’s always unlocked.”
“It’s a very popular spot,” she said. “A lot of people will take a whole day and they’ll drive from the north end to the south end and stop and visit friends and get out at the lighthouse and climb the tower and have lunch.”
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