The tower's cast-in place concrete, hexagonal structure was built with 6 tapered exterior wall buttresses, flared ribs at the platform, a gable roofed entrance, small windows, and a prominent, 10-sided, red lantern topped with a beaver weathervane.

[9] At least one shipwreck and the rescue of one castaway near the island shores is owed to the light station's location in the middle of Whitefish Bay on the major shipping lane upbound and downbound from the Soo Locks.

[10] The steamship Panther sank 26 June 1916, following a collision during fog with the James H. Hill, off Parisienne Island in Whitefish Bay, with no loss of life.

[11][12] When the steamship Myron sank 23 November 1919, the Vermilion lifesaving crew searched Lake Superior in a raging gale for survivors all the way from their station to Ile Parisienne, but found nothing.

The captain of the Myron was rescued 20 hours afterward, found near death drifting on wreckage near Ile Parisienne, his clothes frozen to his body.