Poverty Island Light Station was built on Poverty Island in northwestern Lake Michigan to guide ships through the hazardous Poverty Island Passage as traffic grew after eighteen sixty-four with increased iron ore shipping into Escanaba. Although funding was sought in eighteen sixty-seven, Congress did not provide the needed money until eighteen seventy-three, and construction faced delays from a fire and lack of funds before completion in eighteen seventy-five. The station included a seventy-foot tower, keeper’s dwelling, and later a fog signal, oil house, and docks. Automated in nineteen fifty-seven and deactivated in nineteen seventy-six, the abandoned lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in two thousand five and later ranked among America’s most endangered lighthouses.