By Dylan Engels
Since 2021, the State Historic Preservation Office has awarded over $390,000 to restore lighthouses, among them Grand Haven Inner Pier Light, Eagle Harbor Light Station in Keweenaw County and, most recently, North Pierhead Lighthouse in Manistee.
The projects are part of a plan for preserving historic icons along the Great Lakes.
A report from the Michigan Lighthouse Assistance Program said more than $2.9 million in matching grants has been awarded since the program began in 2000, benefitting dozens of preservation projects across the state.
For a lighthouse to open up as a museum, there needs to be a historic structure report for the site. Requirements include a reliable source of power, making sure there aren’t any tripping hazards and repainting the interior, said Jack Greve, the executive director of the Sable Points Lighthouse Keepers Association in Ludington.
Those are the main problems with the North Pierhead Lighthouse, which just announced its restoration project in January.
The to-do list also includes adding a gift shop and installing handrails, according to the project website.
In addition, solar panels are necessary because it’s not feasible to hook the lighthouse to an onshore source of electricity, Greve said.
“We go through different spaces to get approvals for anything that we do at historic sites.” Greve said.
“At this location, the National Park Service is involved, as well as the State Historic Preservation Office, and of course the local stakeholder, which would be the city of Manistee.”
The project plans the lighthouse to be open to the public in 2026, but since North Pierhead is an active aid to navigation, some precautions are needed, he said.
“We will be in contact with the U.S. Coast Guard to make sure that their power supply is not disturbed,” Greve said. “It will have to be situated in a different space for us to get people up into the lantern room.”
Once preservation is done and if it becomes a museum, that allows the public to explore the living quarters and see what living in the lighthouse was like, said Donald LaBarre, a historian at the Michigan History Center.