Seul Choix Point Lighthouse

Seul Choix Lighthouse

Seul Choix Lighthouse, photo by DanielBrinks.

The Seul Choix Point Lighthouse (map) is operated by the Gulliver Historical Society and DNR as a park & museum. Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light’s page for Seul Choix Pointe Light explains:

At the dawn of the 1880’s, the volume of maritime traffic passing between harbors on the western shore of Lake Michigan and Green Bay and the Straits of Mackinac exploded. While the St. Helena Island light station lighted the eastern entry into the Straits, mariners were forced to navigate blind along 100 miles of unlighted upper peninsula coastline before the Poverty Island light came into view at the western end of the passage. With treacherous storms frequent at both ends of the navigation season, mariners frequently chose to ride out such storms in the lee of points protruding into the lake along this 100-mile stretch of unlighted shoreline.

Seeking to both make identification of such a refuge easier, and to mark the shore at an interim point between the two existing lights, the Lighthouse Board recommended that establishment of a light station on the end of Point Patterson, approximately midway between St. Helena Island and Manistique.

It took nearly 20 years to complete – read on for more about what was apparently the Cadillac of lighthouses. The light is also reputed to be haunted, and you can read a lot more about that in The Haunting of Seul Choix Point Lighthouse on Michigan in Pictures.

Check this out bigger and see more in Daniel’s 2020110700 Vacation slideshow.

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