Photograph of Thunder Bay Island Light — Photograph by NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, CC BY-SA 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Thunder Bay Island Light Station

Built in 1831. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

From the record

“Thunder Bay Island Light, located on Thunder Bay Island's southeast tip, is one of the oldest operating lighthouses in Michigan. The third operating U.S. lighthouse in Lake Huron was built here in 1831, but it disintegrated almost at once and was rebuilt in 1832 of local limestone.”
Wikipedia article Thunder Bay Island Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 12 National Register listings published here for Alpena County · listed in 1984 · category: Building · built in 1831.

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 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. Thunder Bay Island, Alpena, 49707
When was it listed? July 1984
Category. building
Also known as. U.S. Coast Guard Lighthouses and Light Stations on the Great Lakes TR
Township. Alpena township
When was it built? 1831
National Register reference number. 84001371 - 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

1 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Thunder Bay Island Light Station in 2004, burning under an acre 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
Equipment and vehicle use	1

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
20 May 2004	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Alpena County

Storms near this property

25 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Alpena, the town this property stands in, in 25 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 10 hail, 1 lightning. The reports record 1 injury. 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
July 2005	Lightning	Alpena	1 hurt	A nearby lightning strike at a campground shocked a man who was taking down an awning. He was taken to a local hospital for observation.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$50,000	A barn was blown over on Hubbard Lake road.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$50,000	A garage roof was blown over onto a car by thunderstorm wind.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$10,000	Several trees were downed.
April 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$5,000	Strong thunderstorm winds uprooted several large trees near Highway M-32.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$3,000	Several trees down in Washington Avenue Park. Social media pictures included uprooted trees and a blown over portable toilet.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$3,000	A tree and a few large tree limbs were downed on 2nd Avenue and on Sable Street, near the northern city limits of Alpena.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$500	A 12-inch-diameter tree was blown over on Long Rapids Road within two blocks northwest of the city limits in Alpena. A wind gust was estimated at 50 mph.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$500	A 12-inch-diameter tree was uprooted on fair street in the city of Alpena.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$500	A 15-inch-diameter tree was uprooted on Dow Road in the city of Alpena as reported by a student volunteer.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	$500	Several large trees were uprooted by thunderstorm wind.
August 2025	Hail	Alpena	-	Multiple reports of hailstones up to 2 inches in diameter near El Cajon and Misery Bays on the Lake Huron coast east of Alpena.
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	-	Report from social media of a tree snapped at its base, downing wires and a power pole. Rainfall report from the Alpena area of 2.41 inches of rain with thunderstorms with standing water in yard.
July 2016	Hail	Alpena	-	Some damage done to area crops, including wheat and soybeans.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	-	Numerous trees and utility lines were downed.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	-	Strong thunderstorm winds downed numerous trees and powerlines countywide.
August 1993	Hail	Alpena	-	A spotter reported dime-size hail on Franklin Street in the city of Alpena.
June 2008	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
July 2007	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
July 2006	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
July 1996	Hail	Alpena	-	no account filed
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Alpena	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Alpena 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

2 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.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	PEWABIC (propeller) Shipwreck Site	6.7 miles	2016
	PEWABIC (propeller) Shipwreck Site	6.7 miles	2016

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 84001371 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Alpena County	All 12 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.
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.