Tawas Point has a rich history and boasted the first permanent structure in the area when the first lighthouse was completed in 1852.  Here is a presentation that addresses the history of the area as well as the restoration of the lighthouse after it was acquired by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in 2001.

Click the picture below to view the presentation. The slides will automatically advance every five seconds;  use the Pause button to temporarily stop the presentation or the forward or back buttons to control it. 

Click the right or left arrows (below) to scroll through some historic pictures of our lighthouse.

Tawas Point and Tawas Point Lighthouse

Each of Michigan’s 120 plus lighthouses has a story to tell.

The story of Tawas Point and Tawas Point Lighthouse is the story of sand—the story of wind, water and sand.  Sand is the main ingredient in Tawas Point’s ecology and a key ingredient in its history.

Tawas Point has also been known as Ottawa Point, Sandy Hook and the Cape Cod of the Midwest.  Cape Cod, Mass. hooks to the north and east.  Our Sandy Hook hooks to the south and west.

In 1850 Tawas Bay was a pretty quiet place.  There were a few log cabins, a few hearty fishermen and farmers and a tribe of Chippewa Indians led by Chief O-Ta-Was.  Tawas Bay was a natural harbor of refuge and bordered on the east by a sandy peninsula called O-Ta-Was Point.  Map makers respelled it Ottawa Point.  Tawas Bay was situated at the north end of busy Saginaw Bay and, therefore, a bay of great value as a harbor of refuge.  So the U.S. Gov’t decided to establish a Light Station at the end of Ottawa Pt..  It was completed for the 1853 shipping season.  The tower and keeper’s dwelling were the only permanent buildings on the Bay.  A local farmer named Sherman Wheeler became the lighthouse keeper. It was fitted with a 5th order Fresnel lens. Local history says that Chief O-Ta-Was was a frequent visitor and dinner guest at the lighthouse.

When Gideon Whittemore came north to Tawas Bay looking for timber land, he stayed at the lighthouse with the Wheelers.  Gideon Whittemore found vast acres of huge white pine trees.  He established a settlement, a sawmill and a lumber business in 1854 which became Tawas City.   A rival sawmill built to the east became East Tawas.  These two communities are still rivals to this day.

As time went on, Ottawa Point did what Ottawa Pt. does best—it grew in length and width due to the prevailing NE winds which move all that sand.  By 1873 the end of Ottawa Pt. was almost a mile from the 1853 lighthouse and the light was no longer suitable as an aid to mariners trying to navigate around the Point and into the Bay.  Tawas Bay was now a busy place lined with sawmills, docks, and schooners.  Community members called the lighthouse “the little jack-o-lantern” and they petitioned congress for a new lighthouse.  In Nov. of 1874, the schooner Dolphin, loaded with merchandise and supplies for the port of Tawas went aground on Tawas Pt. during a heavy gale.  By 1876 the Lighthouse Board had acquired title to the land at the point’s new end and approved construction plans for a new lighthouse to be built on a shoal of sand in 4 feet of water.

The new lighthouse consisted of a 67 foot high tower and attached 1 1/2 story red brick keeper’s dwelling.  In order to create a stable base on which the structure could be built, an area at the end of the Pt. was shored up with a massive timber crib with timber pilings and rocks to provide a secure base for the circular foundation of cut limestone blocks upon which the tower was built.  The brick dwelling was built over a stone walled cellar built into the crib.  Finally, the entire crib structure was covered over with a plank deck.  There was also a wharf and a boathouse.  The 5th order Fresnel lens was moved from the old lighthouse to the lantern room of the new one.

For the next 10 years continuous upgrades had to be made to the protection cribs and timber platforms.  Historic documents report that the protection cribs were filled with the rubble stone and brick salvaged from the old abandoned lighthouse.  By 1890 sand was filling in around the lighthouse.  As time went on the top of the crib that was sticking out of the sand was cemented over.  So the top of the crib can still be seen today peeking out of the grass.

With the Ottawa Pt. Light becoming increasingly important to navigation on Lake Huron’s west coast the decision was made to upgrade the lens from 5th order to 4th order and a new lens was ordered from Paris and installed in 1891. The light could now be projected 16 miles.  The lens is still in place today.

To help sustain Lighthouse keepers and the light station they served, ships called Lighthouse Tenders brought them supplies: canned goods, the ingredients to make white wash to paint the tower, and a library box filled with books for the whole family.  The tender also brought the Lighthouse Inspector.  The shoaling of sand on Tawas Point was so extensive the tender could not reach the wharf/landing.  Therefore in the 1890’s the wharf was extended 600 ft. so the end of it could at least reach 3 feet of water.  By 1906 they doubled it to 1200 ft out into Tawas Bay all because of sand.  As the wharf was lengthened, boathouses were abandoned and used as workshops or for storage.

With a change to kerosene as lamp fuel, a brick oil storage building was built in 1898 to store the volatile kerosene.  It was built along the walkway from the Keeper’s dwelling to the boat house.

The continuous southward movement of sand at Tawas Pt. continued at a steady pace.  A fog signal building to house a steam powered fog signal was built at the point’s new end in 1899, a mile from the lighthouse.  Protective cribs were built around the building and a raised plank walkway leading to the lighthouse was constructed along with a telephone system for communication between the lighthouse and the fog signal building.  A new landing dock and a tram system was built for the delivery of coal.

With the addition of the fog signal the work load increased and an asst. keeper was needed.  With asst. keepers comes the need for additional housing.  There followed years of trying to convince the Light House Board that additional housing was needed at Tawas Pt. Light Station.  Requests were denied year after year.  By 1905 keepers resorted to fixing up an abandoned boathouse for housing.  They also modified a barn.  Finally in 1922, a dwelling large enough to house 2 families and no longer needed at the Ecorse Lt. Station on the Detroit River was moved to Tawas Pt. and reconstructed just to the north of the lighthouse.  It was named the Double Dwelling. 

Electricity was brought to the Lt. Station in 1935 and full plumbing was installed in 1938.

A Life Saving Station was built in 1876 on the Lake Huron side of Ottawa Point.  Station journals indicate they were quite busy.  In 1935 both the Lighthouse Service and the Life Saving Service were absorbed into the Coast Guard.  A man by the name of Frank Morey is standing in the summer kitchen.  He bridged the gap between the Life Saving Service and the Coast Guard.  He came to Tawas Pt. as a Life Saving Surfman in 1929 and he retired in 1954 as the Coast Guard Commander of Tawas.

By the 1950’s the lighthouse once again stood too far inland.  It was automated in 1953 and Coast Guard Keeper Leon DeRosia accepted a transfer to Grays Reef.  Both the Double Dwelling and the Keeper’s Quarters became Coast Guard family housing until 1993.  Families lived in our Lighthouse for 117 years. 

Ownership of the buildings of the Tawas Pt. Light Station was transferred to Michigan DNR in 2001.  The Double Dwelling was demolished in 2002 and the Michigan Historical Center and the State Historical Preservation Office began the work of restoring the lighthouse to its turn of the 20th century appearance.

The Coast Guard removed the light from the tower in September of 2016.  After 140 years of faithfully projecting a comforting light across Tawas Bay our tower went dark.  The Coast Guard established a modern optic at the fog signal near the current end of the Point.  So for the 3rd time a light to serve as an aid to navigation for Lake Huron and Tawas Bay was established at the ever changing end of Sandy Hook—all because of the movement of sand.

Orientation materials for Tuesday docents are found below.  Click the square at the top right to expand the view, download, or print the file.