Peninsula Point Lighthouse was established to mark a turning point near a hazardous shoal, helping vessels toward the docks of Escanaba and Gladstone on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It served as an aid to navigation from 1865 to its 1936 decommissioning and was subsequently abandoned. The attached keeper’s house burned down in 1959.
The lighthouse is located in Hiawatha National Forest. The USDA-Forest Service has had custodianship of the surrounding area since 1937. The Stonington Grange has played a role in the management of the lighthouse and grounds.
This summer, HistoriCorps and the Great Lakes Conservation Corps carried out repairs to the lighthouse. Volunteers and staff repaired deteriorated bricks, removed blistering and flaking paint on the iron lantern, and repainted all affected areas. Funding came primarily from the Forest Service.
HistoriCorps, founded in 2009, provides volunteers of all skill levels with a hands-on experience preserving historic structures for public benefit across America. HistoriCorps Executive Director Townsend Anderson told the Daily Press of Escanaba, MI, “This exceptionally built lighthouse once played an essential role in the region’s economy. Today, it is an icon of that era, telling its story and helping us, and generations after us, to understand the cultural and historic significance of this place and its rich maritime history.”
You can read more here and here.
Candace was the US Lighthouse Society historian from 2016 until she passed away in August 2018. For 30 years, her work involved lighthouse history. She worked with the National Park Service and the Council of American Maritime Museums. She was a noted author and was considered the most knowledgable person on lighthouse information at the National Archives. Books by Candace Clifford include: Women who Kept the Lights: a History of Thirty-eight Female Lighthouse Keepers , Mind the Light Katie, and Maine Lighthouses, Documentation of their Past.