Mission Point Lighthouse

Mission Point Lighthouse sits on the end of a peninsula between the East arm and West arm of Grand Traverse Bay.  In Traverse City Michigan.

From the lighthouse's web site:  During the 1860’s a large ship hit a shallow reef and sank just in front of where Mission Point Lighthouse now sits. At this point that Congress set aside funds for the construction of the lighthouse. However, it wasn’t completed until 1870 due to the Civil War. From 1870 through 1933, Mission Point’s light kept the waters at the end of Old Mission Peninsula safe for mariners. It was in 1933 that the lighthouse was decommissioned and later replaced with an automatic buoy light just offshore.

Like many other lighthouses, whale oil (and later kerosene) was used to light the 5th Order Fresnel lens that refracted and magnified its modest light source into an intense beam that could be seen up to 13 miles away. The building was only one and one half stories tall. However, its placement on a sand bank 14 feet above the lake's surface created a lens focal plane of 47 feet. 

During our visit, the lighthouse tower was closed, but they have a small museum and gift shop which were open.  There are steps in front of the lighthouse down the dune to a small beach area.

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Here's a snip from Google Earth, showing where the lighthouse and the passage light are  (not my photo!):