Life at Point Iroquois Light Station combined lighthouse duties with a busy coastal community life. In addition to maintaining the light and fog signal, keepers and their families gardened, fished, hunted, cut firewood, picked berries, fought forest fires with neighbors, assisted mariners in distress, and after late fall storms walked the beach searching for wreckage and frozen bodies. The nearest settlement was the Methodist Indian Mission 2 1/2 miles away. Before European immigrants arrived in large numbers in the late 1800s, most nearby residents were Native American Anishinabeg families involved in commercial fishing. Two local Anishinabeg women, Jane Teeple, daughter of Muckwabwan, and Martha Smith, a member of Omawnomawne's Band, kept house and raised families at the lighthouse while their Euro-American husbands, Simon Teeple from 1857 to 1862 and Hosea Smith from 1869 to 1887, served as keepers. Their descendants still live in the area. The station began with an original light tower and wooden keepers building in 1855, was rebuilt with a new brick tower and attached dwelling in 1870, expanded greatly from 1904 to 1906 with a large addition, barn, fog signal, boathouse, dock, and 600 feet of concrete sidewalks, and was modernized in 1933 with electric generators. Stone walls around the yard were completed in 1937 by Chief John Soldenski and friends. The lighthouse was decommissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard in 1962, after which outbuildings were removed. Hiawatha National Forest took over management in 1965, the lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974-1975, the Bay Mills-Brimley Historical Research Society began working with Hiawatha National Forest in 1982 to preserve and interpret it for the public, the first volunteer live-in caretakers arrived in 1984, the Point Iroquois Lighthouse Museum opened in 1988, and restoration and repairs followed from 1989 to 1991.