In the late 1920s, the Toledo Blade reported on the status of the island by saying, “Vandals have wrecked the house, stealing everything that could be salvaged from the structure except the grim, bare walls which stand as a monument to the service this light rendered for nearly half a century.”[5] In 1933, A. H. Merrill transferred ownership of the island to George Merrill.

He signed a lease with the Associated Yacht Club of Toledo (AYC) for them to build a series of docks and use the island for recreational purposes.

However, the AYC ran out of money during the Great Depression and was forced to abandon their plans for rejuvenating Turtle Island.

[4] The lighthouse keeper's headquarters were demolished, and the island suffered further damage from strong winds and waves during the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak.

[6] The small strip of land surrounding the mouth of the Maumee River was under the jurisdiction of the Michigan Territory, because the borders originally drawn up for the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set a territorial boundary as a straight line from the southernmost edge of Lake Michigan.

The lighthouse was still operated by the Port of Toledo, but the island was still claimed and charted as Michigan territory within Monroe County.

The state boundary of Ohio and Michigan remained unchanged from 1837 until 1973 when the status of Turtle Island was finally recognized and resolved long after tensions over the Toledo War had ended.

The state lines were redrawn for the last time to cut exactly through the center of the tiny island's 190-foot (58 m) diameter sea wall[7] at a 45° angle,[8] while the ruins of the lighthouse itself were included in the Ohio half.

[2][9] In 1995 the island was bought by a Jim Neumann, who had dreamed of buying it since his childhood vacations to area.

[10] The decree was ignored, but the structures were never completely finished before they were mostly destroyed by large ice packs during the winter of 2009.

Portions of the concrete wall constructed to originally protect the lighthouse have also eroded away, further exposing the island.

[9] The island was sold again in 2022, to someone that had also bought the Detroit River Lighthouse, as part of the deal the previous owner was still allowed visitation rights.