Au Sable Light, built in 1874 on Au Sable Point in Michigan’s Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, guards a perilous section of Lake Superior shoreline known as the shipwreck coast. Established to mark the shallow Au Sable Point reef and close an 80-mile dark gap between other lights, it protected ships navigating by sight through storms and fog. Originally called Big Sable Light until 1910, the station was designed by Colonel Orlando Metcalfe Poe and later automated in 1958. Much of the complex survives, and the site remains an active navigational aid, a preserved historic station, and a public landmark.