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With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Americans started to flood to
the Chicago area. During the 1850s, vessel traffic through the Straits of
Mackinac was increasing rapidly, and while the Waugoshance Light marked
the western entry into the Straits, and the Bois Blanc Island light marked
the eastern entry, the absence of a navigational aid within t However, as a result of difficulties in obtaining clear title to the land, no action was taken on the station’s construction for more than a decade. With the original appropriation unspent and expired, the Board again petitioned Congress for the construction of a station at McGulpin Point in 1864, this time receiving $20,000 for the project on July 26, 1866. Work began at McGulpin Point early in 1869, and the station was built as a mirror image of the design used at Chambers Island and Eagle Bluff lights under construction in the Door County area that same year. This plan, which is sometimes referred to as the “Norman Gothic” style, was also later also used at Eagle Harbor in 1871, White River in 1875, and at Passage and Sand Islands in 1882.
The building sat on a full basement, which contained two general-purpose areas and an oil storage room. For transport of supplies into the tower, the cast iron spiral stairs connected the oil room to the tower, and they served as the only stairs between the living areas with landings and doors on the first and second floors. The first floor contained a parlor, kitchen and two bedrooms, and the second floor featured two additional bedrooms and a large closet. Almost as an afterthought, a combined wood shed & summer kitchen was built in the form of an addition to the rear of the building.
Correspondence files in the
National Archives in Washington show that Davenport made weekly trips
through the snow to the lighthouse to report on its condition to the
District Inspector in Milwaukee. Perhaps more importantly, these letters
also show that he may have played a critical role in the opening of
navigation every spring by reporting weekly, and sometimes even more
frequently, on ice conditions in the Straits. Awareness of "ice-out" in the
Straits was critical to mariners, since the melting of the ice opened navigation to the
critical ports of Chicago and Milwaukee. Because Davenport
was the only Straits keeper to submit such frequent reports, it
The lighthouse is open in May from noon to 5:00 PM in May and October, and from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM June through September. |
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The promontory which would become known as McGulpin Point has a history
which starts perhaps thousands of years ago with Native American use and
continues into the 20th Century as a lighthouse location. According to the
oral traditions of the Anishnaabek, Native Americans arrived and settled
in the Straits of Mackinac many generations before the arrival of the
first Europeans. Anishnaabek history tells of the Odawa coming to the
Straits of Mackinac to expel an earlier tribe living in Northern Michigan.
According to Odawa historian Andrew J. Blackbird, this tribe was
called the Mus-co-desh. In Blackbird’s story, a great insult was delivered
to the Odawa by the Mus-co-desh, who then occupied what is now Emmet
County. This insult so infuriated the great war chief Sagemaw that he
immediately went back to his villages on Manitoulin Island to gather a war
party to right this wrong. The result was the near extermination of the
Mus-co-desh and their expulsion from Northern Michigan. The Odawa took
advantage of this vacuum and moved into Emmet County, first settling at
McGulpin Point.
American written history
tells us that John McAlpine and his Native American wife lived on McGulpin
Point in the 1760s. After the turbulence of the Revolutionary War the land
was surveyed for the new United States of America by Aaron Greeley and
ownership was determined. John McAlpine’s son and heir, Patrick McGulpin,
was given the patent on this land and holds the first recorded deed in
Emmet County, Michigan in 1811. 
he
shoal-ridden Straits themselves made passage during darkness and periods
of low visibility extremely dangerous. To answer that need, the Lighthouse
Board petitioned Congress for the construction of a lighthouse and fog
bell at McGulpin Point, approximately two miles west of Fort
Michilimackinac. Congress responded favorably to the request on August 3,
1854 with the appropriation of $6,000 for the station’s construction.
The keepers dwelling and
integrated tower were constructed of Cream City brick with the tower
integrated diagonally into the northwest corner of the dwelling. The first
and second stories of the tower were approximately ten feet square with
buttressed corners, while the tower’s upper portion consisted of a
ten-foot octagon. Similar to other stations built on this plan, the tower
is double-walled with a circular inner wall approximately four inches
thick and eight feet in diameter to house a set of cast iron spiral
stairs. The tower was capped with a prefabricated decagonal cast-iron
lantern and outfitted with a fixed white Third-and-a-half Order Fresnel
lens. 
Among the Station’s most
notable keepers was James Davenport, who after serving at Waugoshance and
Little Point Sable, was transferred to McGulpin Point in September of
1879. He held this position twenty-seven years, until the station was
discontinued in 1906. The Davenport family lived the entire navigation
season in the lighthouse. After the close of the navigation season
every year, they moved into to their home in Mackinaw City so that the children
could get to and from school, the snow making the trip from town to the
lighthouse virtually impossible. 
would appear that the
Inspector used these reports to gain an understanding as to when
navigation would be open throughout the lakes. Most of Davenport’s weekly
winter reports consisted of terse commentary as exemplified by his letter
of March 28, 1890 in which he reported “Sir, Ice in the Straits between
here and Mackinac Island is broke up some so that it moved a little with
the heavy E. wind last night. But no water to be seen west of this station
as far as can be seen with a glass. The ice is good and solid. Teams
crossed the Straits yesterday. Lake Huron is clear of ice up to Mackinac
Island. This station is in good order.” Davenport was absolutely
meticulous in filing these reports on a weekly basis with the exception of
a single week in 1891, when he missed filing his report. His sad letter of
March 23rd of that same year provided the reason for his missing the
report, when he wrote “Sir, I just was up in the Lt House and found all in
good order. You will see by this report that I did not report to you last
week. My wife and child died last week and I could not go up to the light
house to report to you as required.” 
December 5, 1893 was a
particularly eventful one at McGulpin Point when the wooden propeller
WALDO A. AVERY caught fire while passing through the Straits. By the time
the vessel was off McGulpin Point, the fire was raging so badly that in
order to save his crew, the captain steered the vessel toward the
lighthouse at full steam. Keeper Davenport had left the station for
Mackinaw City earlier in the day, and with the aforementioned passing of
his wife two years prior, had left his nine children alone at the station.
Accustomed to lighthouse life, the children were a resourceful group, and
made preparations for the care of the survivors. Imagine the fear in the
children’s hearts as they saw the crew members literally fighting for
their lives on the approaching vessel. Alerted to what was going on at the
lighthouse, Davenport rushed back to the station with a number of Mackinaw
City residents. With the vessel’s lifeboat burned and unusable, numerous
trips to the burning and beached vessel were made with the Station’s small
skiff, until all seventeen crew members had been brought to safety on the
shore. The AVERY’s insurance for the season had expired the previous day,
and while the vessel was declared a complete loss at the time, the hull
was recovered in 1894. The vessel was rebuilt, and continued to ply the
lakes until she was finally abandoned in 1923. 
With the construction of
the Old Mackinac Point light and fog signal station in 1892, the
Lighthouse Board decided that McGulpin point station no longer served its
once critical role, since the new light at Old Mackinac Point was
visible from throughout the Straits, whereas McGulpin Point was only
effectively visible from the west. The Lighthouse Board officially
authorized the discontinuance of McGulpin point on November 12, 1906, and
keeper Davenport climbed the stairs to exhibit his light for the last time
on the closing of the navigation season on December 15 of that year. The
station was boarded-up and the lantern and lens removed, with Davenport
serving as caretaker for a few weeks until his transfer to Mission Point
lighthouse where he continued to serve until his retirement in 1917. On
retirement, he returned to Mackinaw City, where he lived-out the remainder
of his life, passing away on March 18, 1932 at the age of eighty-five.
While records show that
McGulpin Point’s lens was temporarily stored at Old Mackinac Point
lighthouse, the eventual disposition of both the station’s lens and
lantern remain undetermined. Approval was issued by the Board to sell the
lighthouse at auction on May 22, 1907, and advertisements of the sale were
published in the Cheboygan, Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee newspapers with
sealed bids received to be opened on July 17. The highest bid received was
only for $875, and with the District Inspector feeling that it was worth
at least twice that much, the bid was rejected, and the property sat
unused. 
Over the ensuing years,
correspondence concerning the station included a possible transfer to
Mackinac State Historic Parks and use of the station dock and dwelling
during the construction of White Shoal lighthouse, but neither of these
options reached fruition. The lighthouse finally passed into private
ownership on July 30, 1913 when a Sam Smith, an early Mackinaw City
president and entrepreneur, purchased the property for $1,425. The station
was subsequently resold a couple of times, last being owned by the Peppler
family, from whom the station was purchased by Emmet County in 2008.
Soon after purchasing the
lighthouse, the County formed a Historical Commission to plan and oversee
the restoration and interpretation of the lighthouse, with GLLKA's Straits
Coordinator Sandy Planisek serving as Chair of this Commission,
and GLLKA President Dick Moehl serving as one of the Commissioners.. Emmet County’s mission is
to reestablish McGulpin Point Lighthouse as a private aid to navigation
(PATON). The U.S. Coast Guard has approved the McGulpin Point Lighthouse
PATON application, and a contract was let late in 2008 to Moran Iron
Works, Inc. of Onaway, MI to construct a replica decagonal lantern. At a
major A major maritime event on May 30, 2009 the McGulpin Point lighthouse
was reopened and relighted as an official Private Aid to
Navigation on May 30, 2009, 103 years after it was extinguished.