Photo Credit: Jim Grapp
There are more lighthouses dotting Michigan’s shores than any other state in the United States. One of those is the Little Sable Point Light, which is located south of Mears on Lake Michigan in Oceana County.
On June 10, 1872, Congress appropriated $35,000 for the construction of a lighthouse at this location. One month later, President Ulysses S. Grant set aside 40 acres for the tower. Construction was delayed until 1873 due to lack of roads to the site and the light was put into service in 1874.
The 107-foot tall station was originally named “Petite Pointe Au Sable Lighthouse”, which is the official name used on most records. However, the name was changed in 1910 and is listed by the National Park Service as “Little Point Sable Light”, though it is commonly called “Little Sable Point Light”. The architect was Colonel Orlando M. Poe and the style features Italianate bracketing. The lighthouse has been described as “a classic Poe tower”.
The original complex also included a lighthouse keeper’s residence and several outbuildings (garage, chicken coops, outhouse, and storage sheds). The lighthouse was staffed by 15 light keepers over the years, until 1954. That year, the lighthouse keeper’s dwelling and outbuildings were demolished by the Coast Guard when electricity reached the site and the light was automated.
The Black Hawk was the first of many shipwrecks recorded by the Petite Pointe Au Sable light keepers. Throughout the 1880s, the lighthouse saw many shipwrecks due to Michigan being the primary source of lumber for Chicago and other Great Lakes ports. This structure has withstood against many storms, with one of the most notable being one that took place on Armistice Day in 1940, where three ships went down during the storm. 30-foot waves beat the Lake Michigan shorelines, while 92 mile per hour wind gusts hammered the lighthouse.
The foundation of the lighthouse is comprised of 109 one-foot diameter wooden piles driven into the sand, with 12 feet of stone as a base for the brick tower. The walls of the tower are 5 feet thick at the base and 2 feet thick at its top, and the lantern is capped by a copper roof. From 1874 to 1900, the brick was left in its natural red color and state, as it was unusually hard and held up well to the elements (unlike its sister lighthouse, Big Sable Point Light in Ludington, Michigan, which had to be encased in steel boilerplates to help stop its deterioration). In 1900, the light was painted white for the first time, following the complaints of sailors who claimed the brick was difficult to see. It remained that color until 1975, when it was sandblasted and returned to its natural color.
The lighthouse lantern is a third order Fresnel lens (manufactured by Sautter & Co. of Paris, and rare on the Great Lakes), with an intensity of 40,000 candlepower and a range of 15 nautical miles. The first light was illuminated with three wicks, one of which was 3-1/2 inches in diameter. That was replaced in 1918, by an incandescent oil vapor lamp that also used kerosene. The clockwork operated to produce a five-second flash every 30 seconds. Little Sable Lighthouse was reportedly the last lighthouse on the Great Lakes using an incandescent oil vapor lamp.
The lens and glass prisms were meticulously polished by the light keeper and the assistant. The keeper and the assistant shared duty, often on a 24-hour-on, 24-hour-off basis, and whoever was on watch had to walk up to the top three times. They had to light the lamp and wind the clockwork mechanism before sundown, wind it again at midnight, and extinguish it at dawn. Keepers also had to bring kerosene with them, in containers holding two or three gallons. The light was first lit in 1874, electrically automated in 1954, and deactivated in 2014.
In June 2006, after over 50 years, the lighthouse opened to the public and you can now climb the 139 steps to view the Fresnel lens and the panoramic landscape. Today, it is one of four lighthouses in the area (including the White River Light Station, The North Breakwater Light, and the Big Sable Point Lighthouse) staffed by volunteers from the Sable Points Light Keepers Association (SPLKA), renamed Lakeshore Keepers in 2025. It is open every day from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., beginning the first weekend in June through the end of September.
The lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 19, 1984. It is also listed as a Michigan State Historic Site and is part of the Silver Lake State Park.
Photo Credit: Matthew Goeckner
About the Architect: Orlando Metcalfe Poe
Orlando Metcalfe Poe was born on March 7, 1832 in Navarre, Ohio and died on October 2, 1895 in Detroit. Poe is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the oldest of five children and a 1856 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. He initially sought a commission in the Artillery but changed his mind and went to the Corps of Topographic Engineers instead. Until the Civil War, he served on survey duty in the Great Lakes under Captain George G. Meade, and he was promoted to first lieutenant during that time.
Shortly before the Civil War, Poe married and many of his letters to his wife are now in the Library of Congress. Poe served as George McClellan’s chief engineer in Ohio and West Virginia. He then accepted a commission as a colonel of the second Michigan Volunteer Infantry.
In 1863, he served in a critical engineering role during the Knoxville campaign and was then appointed as William Tecumseh Sherman’s chief engineer from 1864 through the end of the war. Poe oversaw important engineering work during the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the March Through the Carolinas. After the war, he was promoted to Brigadier General.
In the summer of 1865, Poe became the Lighthouse Board’s engineer secretary; his work included designing the current St. Simons Island Lighthouse near Brunswick, Georgia.
In 1870, Poe returned to Detroit, where he was promoted to Chief Engineer of the Upper Great Lakes 11th Lighthouse District. He designed eight “Poe Style Lighthouses” and oversaw construction of several on the Great Lakes, including the Little Sable Point Lighthouse.
Poe returned to Washington, D.C. in 1873 and accepted a staff position with General-In-Chief Sherman. Poe served on the Lighthouse Board in a non-executive position, and his 19 years of almost continuous work with the Lighthouse Service are among the longest by a commissioned officer. When Sherman retired in 1884, Poe returned to Detroit, where he again worked on Great Lakes engineering projects, including the Poe Lock at Sault Ste. Marie. He was engineer of the 9th and 11th Districts for six months in 1892.
Poe’s life ended rather tragically in 1895, after he contracted a fatal infection. Poe died less than a year before the completion of the lock he had designed, which at the time was the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The original Poe Lock was dismantled in the early 1960’s and replaced with a larger, more modern lock on the same site. This new passageway was renamed the Poe Lock and serves the largest of the Great Lakes freighters to this day.