Au Sable Light, Maritime beacon in Burt Township, Michigan, United States.
Au Sable Light is a brick lighthouse on the southern shore of Lake Superior in Michigan, standing about 90 feet (27 m) tall. The tower was built in the Italianate style and features a circular shaft with cast-iron corbels that support the lantern gallery.
The lighthouse was built in 1874 to mark a stretch of Lake Superior's southern shore that had no navigation aids. Over the following decades, additional buildings were added around it to house the keepers and store supplies.
The name Au Sable comes from the French for "sandy water," referring to the nearby river that meets Lake Superior here. Visitors can see how the sandy shoreline and the river mouth together made this stretch of coast a natural landmark for passing sailors.
The lighthouse can only be reached on foot via marked trails from Hurricane River Campground or Log Slide Overlook, so plan for a round trip through forested terrain. Weather along this part of Lake Superior changes quickly, so bring layers even in warmer months.
The lighthouse sits within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which makes it one of the few working lighthouses in the country inside a national park area. Because there is no road access, it remains one of the harder lighthouses to visit in Michigan, and that distance keeps the surroundings almost unchanged from what they looked like a century ago.
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