Cheboygan Point Light Ruins
During our weekend stay in Mackinaw City, we decided to hop over to Cheboygan to check out a few of the lighthouses there since I had never been before! It’s about a 20-minute drive east, so pretty close. First we decided to go and check out the Cheboygan Lighthouse Ruins. It was my favorite part of the day, by far. We got directions to Cheboygan State Park, and headed in until we hit a dirt road and saw parking for the trail. We parked, and started on our way to Lighthouse Point!
It was a super fun walk. I was kind of nervous heading into it, because I heard it was over 2 miles, and the first part was entirely in the forest (aka; lots of mosquitos). But we saw a sign for the blue trail, so we decided to try that instead of continuing on the green trail and it led us right down to the beach, which was perfect. We took off our shoes and kept walking down the shoreline for quite a while until we saw a sign that said, “Lighthouse Ruins”. Woo!
Cheboygan Point Light was built and first lit in September 1851. High water turned out to be a problem, so they decided to demolish the original tower, and build a new station in 1959 (only 8 years later!). In 1930, when the Fourteen Foot Shoal Light was built, this lighthouse was considered obsolete, and was abandoned. In the 1940’s, it was finally demolished due to vandalism.
We checked out a bit of the ruins, which was mostly just the foundation of the old lighthouse. The entire area is overgrown, and there’s a sign that says “Keep out”, so we just peeked over the fence to see it. We headed back to shore after that to make our way back to our car. The best thing about the walk was seeing the shoal lights out in Lake Huron. I had no idea we’d see them on our walk. So we also got to see the Fourteen Foot Shoal Light, and the Poe Reef Lighthouse. I was so pumped!
We got back in the car, grabbed lunch at Mulligan’s, and went to see the remaining two Cheboygan Lighthouses. Unfortunately, it was the worst time of day, and our pictures just turned out so badly, so I’m not going to post any of them (blogger woes), so honestly we’ll probably return someday, because they are awesome lighthouses and I want to dedicate a full post to them! But if you’re ever in Cheboygan, I’d definitely recommend taking a walk to the ruins, even if you’re not a huge lighthouse fan. It’s a fun walk along the beach.
Outfit details:
Naut What You Think Dress c/o ModCloth
Course of Nature Backpack c/o ModCloth (similar)
H&M Sunglasses
Tie Told Ya So! Flat c/o ModCloth (not pictured)