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The most remote mainland lighthouse on the Great Lakes is now for sale, and it could be yours for $890,000. But, you’ll need a boat to get there and plenty of money to restore what was once a magnificent lighthouse.
Built in 1894 near Ontonagon, Michigan, the Fourteen Mile Point Lighthouse somewhat resembled Michigan’s Big Bay Point Lighthouse, but it was much more elaborate. Although the lighthouse comes with 49 acres of beautiful forest land and a 4,000 foot stretch of pristine shoreline, the light station is just as remote today as it was when lighthouse families once lived there.
On April 4, 1945 when the light in the lantern was officially turned off for the last time, the light station was virtually abandoned and turned over to the Department of the Interior - but they didn’t want it! After sitting empty and abandoned for a number of years, in 1957 it was sold into private ownership, and a few years later it was sold again. But the new owners made no effort to maintain the property, and, in spite of its remote location, vandals found their way to the lighthouse by snowmobile over the beach in the winter months or by boat in the summer months. And with each visit, more vandalism took place. The worst happened on July 30, 1984 when a fire completely gutted the keeper’s house.
In the 1990s, the lighthouse was again sold to private owners who did some work to stabilize what was left. But apparently the project of totally restoring the lighthouse was beyond their scope. Hopefully, a new owner, or perhaps a new nonprofit with good fundraising capabilities, can bring fresh life to what was once a magnificent lighthouse on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula on Lake Superior.
This story appeared in the
Nov/Dec 2018 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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