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Photograph of Gull Rock Light Station
Photograph by US Coast Guard, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Gull Rock Light Station

Built in 1867. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

From the record

“The Gull Rock Light Station is an active lighthouse located on Gull Rock, just west of Manitou Island, off the tip of Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior. The light was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, even as its condition deteriorated, resulting in its placement on the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List.”

Wikipedia article Gull Rock Light Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 31 National Register listings published here for Keweenaw County · listed in 1984 · category: Building · built in 1867.

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. Gull Rock, Copper Harbor
  • 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. Grant township
  • When was it built? 1867
  • National Register reference number. 84001751 - 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

2 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Gull Rock Light Station in 2006, burning about 225 acres in total. 1 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
Natural1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
3 August 2006Natural106 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesKEYSTONE
7 July 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined119 acresMichigan Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Every fire recorded in Keweenaw County

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Gull Rock Light Station: 4 occurrences. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Copper. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Unnamed Copper DepositCopperOccurrence
Unnamed Copper ProspectCopperOccurrence
Unnamed Copper ProspectCopperOccurrence
Unnamed Copper ProspectCopperOccurrence

Every working recorded in Keweenaw County

Storms near this property

5 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Copper Harbor, the town this property stands in, in 5 storm reports between 1994 and 2007: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 tornado. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1994HailCopper Harbor$5,000Hail damage reported to vehicle windshields and a metal roof of a store. Winds blew down trees and power lines between Eagle River and Copper Harbor.
June 1994Thunderstorm WindCopper Harbor$5,000Hail damage reported to vehicle windshields and a metal roof of a store. Winds blew down trees and power lines between Eagle River and Copper Harbor.
July 2007Thunderstorm WindCopper Harbor$3,000Many trees and branches downed along the highway.
August 2003Tornado (F0)Copper Harbor-A waterspout over Lake Superior moved onshore at Silver Island just off the shore from Eagle Harbor. The tornado knocked down a tree on the island before it dissipated.
June 2003Thunderstorm WindCopper Harbor-Three trees were blown down.

Every storm recorded in Keweenaw 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

1 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 PropertyDistance Listed
Manitou Island Light Station3.6 miles1984

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 84001751 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Keweenaw CountyAll 31 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.