Only in operation until 1906, the light is located on McGulpin Point, (500 Headlands Road), approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Fort Michilimackinac.

[3] McGulpin Point Lighthouse & Historic Site has been owned by Emmet County since 2008 and the facility has been an official private Aid to Navigation on the NOAA chart map since 2009.

[9] Correspondence files in the National Archives in Washington show that Davenport made weekly trips through the snow to the lighthouse to report on its condition to the District Inspector in Milwaukee.

Perhaps more importantly, these letters also show that he may have played a critical role in the opening of navigation every spring by reporting weekly, and sometimes even more frequently, on ice conditions in the Straits.

[13][14] The county also allocated $25,000 for signs, plaques, a flagpole, and promotional materials to advertise and announce the lighthouse as a new historic resource of the Straits of Mackinac region.

An invocation by Frank Ettawageshik, of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, was followed by a "stirring performance by four Native American drummers."

The official relighting was switched on by United States Senator Debbie Stabenow and James Tamlyn, Emmet County Board of Commissioners chairman.