How Michigan’s Tawas Point Lighthouse Ended Up In The Middle of Its Peninsula

There are so many lighthouses I still have yet to discover in the Great Lakes and one of them is a VERY peculiar site and has an even stranger story. Tawas Point Lighthouse is located in the Tawas Point State Park off Tawas Bay in Lake Huron in Baldwin Township in Northern Michigan, and when it was built in 1877, rested on the edge of the point looking over the lake. But at some point a strange thing started to happen. The lighthouse began to almost recede into the peninsula, as it appeared more land grew onto the point. Now of course, land doesn't just "grow" like a tree, so how did this happen?

Once on the edge of the point, it now lies over a mile from the tip of the point since it was completed in 1the 1800's. It turns out there IS a scientific explanation for how this is even possible, called Accretion:

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By definition, Accretion is: the process of growth or increase, typically by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter. So you can see how a build up of sand and dirt could extend something like a peninsula. It's just really impressive how this area  has added on a mile of land in only 145 years.

It just goes to show that given enough time, the state continues to take shape and add new beauty. I guess we can be happy the land didn't disappear and had lost the lighthouse to the lake.