Charlevoix South Pier Lighthouse

Come to Charlevoix’s red pierhead light at the end of the day. It stands at Michigan Beach Park on Grant Street, within walking distance of downtown, and it is a favorite place to watch the sun set over Lake Michigan. It suits families too: the park has a swimming area, an accessible playground, restrooms and concessions, and anglers fish from the pier.

Walk out along the Pine River Channel, the passage between Lake Michigan and Round Lake, and you are at a spot that has had a light since 1885. The first was a square, open-frame wooden tower with an iron lantern on the north pier, built at the lighthouse depot in Detroit. In 1914 it moved to the south pier, and a new steel tower took its place on the north pier.

A keeper tended the light until 1940. In 1948 the aging wooden tower gave way to today’s steel tower, made in Milwaukee, which reused the old lantern room.

The Coast Guard declared the station excess in 2005, and the National Park Service awarded it to the City of Charlevoix in 2008. After restoration work in 2009 it went back to red, a color it had worn for many years before it was painted white in 1968.