Eagle Harbor Lighthouse

Eagle Harbor Light exists because of a rock ledge with eight feet of water over it across the harbor mouth. The first station, a wooden tower on a rubble-stone keeper’s house, went up in 1850 and 1851 and was in bad enough shape by 1868 that the Lighthouse Board wanted it rebuilt. The brick tower standing today dates from 1871.

The Coast Guard automated the light in 1982 and the Keweenaw County Historical Society has run the station as a museum complex since: the lighthouse itself, a maritime museum in the old fog signal building, a commercial fishing museum and a Keweenaw history museum. One admission covers the whole complex. The light is still active, so the top of the tower stays closed.