Ludington State Park is a 4,800-acre public recreation area between Lake Michigan and Hamlin Lake north of Ludington, Michigan. Its mix of sand dunes, forest, wetlands, marshland, and part of the Big Sable Dunes complex makes it one of western Michigan’s distinctive coastal landscapes. The park includes a mile of the Big Sable River and the 112-foot Big Sable Point Lighthouse, first lit in 1876. Established in 1927 after former federal lighthouse preserve land was transferred for state park use, it was later improved by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s and expanded in 2002 when the lighthouse station complex passed to state management.