Benzie & Sleeping Bear
Frankfort
A beach-and-lighthouse harbor town: a Lake Michigan beach at the end of Main Street, a breakwater light off the sand and Point Betsie up the shore.
About 4 miles away (straight line)
Lighthouse · Benzie & Sleeping Bear
Point Betsie Lighthouse
An 1850s brick lighthouse on the Lake Michigan shore north of Frankfort, with a museum, a climbable tower and a public beach beside it.
Photo: Sbflorio, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Point Betsie gives you a lighthouse and a public beach in one stop, on the Lake Michigan shore between Frankfort and the southern end of Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Tour the museum and gift shop, climb the tower, then walk out onto the beach next to it. Parking is free but fills on busy summer days, so come early in peak season. The Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse care for the buildings and run the museum, shop and tours, and the Coast Guard looks after the working light.
Work on the station began in 1854 and was finished in 1858, and its light entered service for the 1859 shipping season. The tower is built of Cream City brick and stands 37 feet to the top of its ventilator ball, with the light about 52 feet above the lake.
Keepers tended the light by hand for decades. Electricity arrived in 1921, the last keeper retired in 1963, and the light was fully automated by 1984. Over the years the station also gained a fog signal and a life-saving station, and the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Practical information
- Managed by
- Friends of Point Betsie Lighthouse (site and museum); the U.S. Coast Guard oversees the automated light
- Season
- The museum and tower tours run seasonally. The Friends' 2026 season ran from mid-May to mid-October, with a few extra weekend openings later in October.
- Beach and parking
- The beach beside the lighthouse is open to the public, and parking is free, though it fills on busy summer days.
- Official website
- pointbetsie.org
Location
Map of Point Betsie Lighthouse
4 places on an OpenStreetMap map
Nearby towns
Also nearby
Straight-line distances, not driving distances.
Beach
Frankfort Beach
Frankfort's public Lake Michigan beach and playground at the west end of Main Street, with restrooms, ADA walkways and the piers and lighthouse in view.
About 4 miles away (straight line)
Historic site
Garden Theater
Frankfort's 1923 Main Street movie house, renovated and run by a nonprofit, showing first-run and independent films and home to the Frankfort Film Festival.
About 4 miles away (straight line)
Lighthouse
Frankfort North Breakwater Lighthouse
A 67-foot square steel lighthouse at the head of Frankfort's north breakwater, marking the harbor entrance in full view of the city beach.
About 4 miles away (straight line)