Summary
Lookout Point is a GNIS-named cape on Beaver Island. A July 2025 local-history account identifies a high point by Lookout Drive as the former site of a Coast Guard lookout tower with views toward Lake Michigan. It says Coast Guard personnel manned the tower daily with binoculars until the Mackinac Bridge was completed, and that paths between the tower and the station at Whiskey Point were formed by repeated foot patrols.
The same account connects the point to the George and Althea Petritz Nature Preserve. It reports that the small tower was later used as a playhouse and was eventually placed at Heritage Park, but the article presents this as local recollection rather than an official Coast Guard inventory. The 2015 Charlevoix Courier separately lists the preserve as a 28-acre Beaver Island birding site.
Open questions
- What Coast Guard records establish the tower’s construction, service dates, staffing, and removal?
- Is the building now at Heritage Park demonstrably the former Lookout Point tower, and when was it moved?
- What survey or preserve documents define the boundary between Lookout Point and the Petritz preserve?
Sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System, Domestic Names (Michigan), retrieved 2026-07-28.GNIS feature 1618183; feature class 'Cape'.federal · gnis · gnis_names
- Marilyn Clark Duda, "Petritz Preserve Paths," *Northern Light*, July 2025.Local history account places a Coast Guard lookout tower on the high point at Lookout Point, describes daily manning with binoculars before the Mackinac Bridge, and records paths between Whiskey Point and the tower.
- Charlevoix Courier, January 2015, "Beaver Island businesses gearing up for fall tourism."Lists the George and Althea Petritz Preserve among Beaver Island birding sites and identifies it as a 28-acre Little Traverse Conservancy preserve.