The Waugoshance Lighthouse (or as the old sailors called it, Wobbleshanks) sits out in Lake Michigan, near the tip of Michigan’s mitten off the coast of Wilderness State Park. It is at a remote place out of sight by most tourists, and the beacon has been abandoned and left to crumble into Lake Michigan. It was the first lighthouse in the Great Lakes completely surrounded by water when it was built in 1851. It’s unique looking “birdhouse” style lantern room illuminated the dark for decades guiding ships into the Straits of Mackinac.
As ships got larger, the shipping lanes changed and the old iron-clad lighthouse was no longer needed. It was decommissioned in 1912 abandoned by the U.S. Lighthouse Service. As if being left to the elements wasn’t cruel enough, the Army Air Corps in WWII used it as a target to test drones and bombed the outcast Lighthouse. What the elements did not destroy, the fire from the bombs did. It is just a shell of rusted metal and crumbling stone and bricks. The U.S. Government tried to sell it but nobody was interested in purchasing it. A non profit group was formed to save and protect it but without being able to secure funding they to have reluctantly abandoned the old lighthouse. A this point the historic structure is being pounded by the waves and storms of Lake Huron and is sure to fall into the lake soon. The lighthouse is listed as one of the most endangered lighthouses by Lighthouse Digest.
My recent book about Great Lake lighthouses features a day of isolation at the historic Waugoshance Lighthouse. If you love lighthouses, I hope you will take a look at my book HERE
