Tawas Point Lighthouse | By the Beacon

The white tower beside the red-brick keeper’s house and outbuilding. Photograph by Todd.

A tall white tower rises beside a red-brick keeper’s house, with a steep red roof and open grass around the station. Tawas Point’s setting is as much a part of its story as the buildings: the sandy peninsula has grown outward over time, changing the relationship between the lighthouse, the bay, and the open lake.

Quick Facts

Location	Tawas Point State Park · East Tawas, Iosco County
Waterway	Lake Huron · entrance to Tawas Bay
First station	1853
Present lighthouse	1876
Tower height	About 67 feet
Historic optic	Fourth-order Fresnel lens · remains in the tower
Navigation service	1876–2016 at the present station
Access	State park grounds; seasonal guided tours and tower climbs

History & Description

The first Tawas Point lighthouse was built in 1853 near today’s park entrance. Sand continued to accumulate beyond it, leaving the light increasingly far from the end of the point. Growing lumber and fishing traffic on Tawas Bay made that separation a serious limitation.

A replacement station was built in 1876 to mark the bay entrance and nearby shallows. The slender round tower and attached brick dwelling combined a beacon with the practical rooms of a keeper’s home. Their contrasting white masonry and red roofs remain the station’s defining features.

The land kept growing. By 2016, the Coast Guard had replaced the tower’s navigational role with a modern light nearer the tip. The fourth-order Fresnel lens remains inside the historic lantern, linking the museum to the optical technology that once guided vessels here.

Seen from the paths and grasses, the buildings have an intimate scale; viewed from above, they sit within a much larger landscape of water, sand, trees, and open ground. That changing shoreline explains why a lighthouse built close to the water can now feel comfortably inland.

Visitor Information

Getting there: The lighthouse is inside Tawas Point State Park at 686 Tawas Beach Road, East Tawas. Follow park signs to the lighthouse area and check current vehicle-entry requirements before visiting.
Tours and tower: The Michigan History Center offers seasonal guided visits. The tower climb includes 85 stairs. Confirm tour dates, admission, climb requirements, and any closures on the official lighthouse page before setting out.
Around the point: Allow time for the Sandy Hook Nature Trail, shoreline views, and birdwatching. The park is a migration stopover, and its combination of open water, vegetation, and beach gives the visit a different rhythm from the tower tour.
Photography: Try the rope-lined steps for a view toward the brick house, or the surrounding grasses for a more distant composition. Walk around the station to see how the sun changes the tower’s shape and the shadows on the roofs.

History and visitor references: Michigan History Center and Tawas Point State Park.