It and Sentinel Island Light Station were the first U.S. government lighthouses opened in Alaska, first lit on March 21, 1902.

Completed in 1902, it was a rectangular lighthouse with a square tower, elevated several feet above the surrounding hipped roof.

Atop the tower sat a lantern room from which a fourth-order Fresnel lens produced a fixed beam of white light at a focal plane of 68 feet (21 m).

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Five Finger Light Station in 2004.

The replacement, built in 1935, "is a good example of Modern Movement architecture, popular in the 1930s for concrete buildings, and adapted by the U.S. Lighthouse Service as the agency replaced the original wood frame lighthouse buildings at many of its sixteen staffed stations in Alaska.