Photograph of Charlevoix South Pier Light Station — Photograph by Notorious4life ( Uploads ), CC0 1.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Charlevoiz South Pierhead Light

Built in 1948. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

From the record

“The Charlevoix South Pier Light Station is located on Lake Michigan at the entrance to Lake Charlevoix in Charlevoix County in the U.S. state of Michigan at the end of the south pier/breakwater of the channel leading to Round Lake in the city of Charlevoix.”
Wikipedia article Charlevoix South Pier Light Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 17 National Register listings published here for Charlevoix County · listed in 2005 · category: Structure · built in 1948.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. S pier at harbor entrance, 0.3 WNW of US 31 drawbridge, Charlevoix, 49720
When was it listed? April 2005
Category. structure
Township. Charlevoix township
When was it built? 1948
National Register reference number. 05000346 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

3 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Charlevoiz South Pierhead Light between 1992 and 2008, burning about 87 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	3

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
11 May 1992	Debris and open burning	4.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
14 April 2003	Debris and open burning	83 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 November 2008	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CHARLEVOIX 04

Every fire recorded in Charlevoix County

Mines and quarries near this property

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Charlevoiz South Pierhead Light: 4 producers, 2 past producers, 1 prospect. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Clay, Limestone, General, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Manthei Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Medusa Cement	Limestone, General	Producer	1968
Newaygo Prtlnd Cmnt Co Shale Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Unnamed Clay Prospect	Clay	Prospect
Charlevoix Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
City Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Medusa Quarry and Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Charlevoix County

Storms near this property

10 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Charlevoix, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1997 and 2012: 5 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2012	Flash Flood	Charlevoix	$2,000	High water closed US-31 between Garfield and St Marys in the city of Charlevoix.
August 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Charlevoix	$1,000	Power lines downed.
October 2007	Hail	Charlevoix	-	A spotter reported penny sized hail and 35 mph winds.
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Charlevoix	-	Numerous 12-15 inch trees down.
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Charlevoix	-	Trees and power lines down.
July 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Charlevoix	-	no account filed
July 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Charlevoix	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Charlevoix	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Charlevoix	-	no account filed
July 1997	Hail	Charlevoix	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Charlevoix County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

4 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Charlevoix Central Historic District	0.3 miles	2025
Chicago and West Michigan Railroad Charlevoix Station	1.1 miles	1995
Loeb Farms Barn Complex	3.4 miles	1995
Greensky Hill Mission	3.9 miles	1972

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 05000346 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Charlevoix County	All 17 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.