By the first Saturday of August, the Summerfest tents have come down, the 5K bibs are in the recycling, and the crowd at the ice cream window is thinner than it was three weekends ago. The season isn't ending. It's rotating. The stretch between the first weekend of August and the last weekend of September is the part of the Tawas calendar built for people who stay after Labor Day, and this year the pivot has a specific date on it.
The Weekend the Point Turns 150
The Tawas Point Lighthouse marks its 150th anniversary with a two-day kickoff on Friday, August 7, from noon to 5 p.m., which happens to be National Lighthouse Day. If you have driven past the entrance to Tawas Point State Park every summer for a decade and never actually walked up to the tower, this is the weekend the state has removed your last excuse. Admission is waived for the day.
The celebration continues Saturday, August 8, with a Lee Murdock concert at the Lighthouse Pavilion from 7 to 9 p.m. Murdock is a Great Lakes musician who works from a collection of regional history, songs, and legends. You bring the blanket and the chairs. The Pavilion itself is new enough that some year-round residents still haven't seen it finished. The Friends of Tawas Point cut the ribbon on it on September 10, 2025.
A note for anyone treating Friday as a walk-up: the lighthouse admission is free, but a Recreation Passport is still required for vehicle entry to Tawas Point State Park. If your tab is not on your windshield, buy one at the gate and keep moving.
What the Free Friday Actually Gets You
Because "admission waived" reads as thin marketing copy without a translation, here is what is inside the gate that day:
- Climb access. The tower is 85 stairs to a view of Tawas Bay and Lake Huron. On a normal day that climb is $5 for adults and $2 for kids six to seventeen.
- Yard games, a lighthouse craft table, storybook time with the Iosco-Arenac District Library, and partner organization tables.
- Museum access on the ground floor without the tower climb, for anyone bringing a grandparent or a toddler who is not doing 85 stairs.
- The Pavilion itself, which you will want to see before the Saturday concert crowd fills it.
If you want to see the light in a less crowded configuration, the Friends run Tuesdays at the Light from early June through the end of August, with the lighthouse open noon to 4 p.m. There are three of those Tuesdays left after the anniversary weekend.
Thursdays in Town Square, Saturdays at Gateway
The rhythm most non-residents miss is the mid-week one. The Shoreline Summer Series puts free concerts on the Town Square stage along Lake Huron in Shoreline Park, with cooler-and-blanket seating and boat-up access from Tawas Bay. The Tawas City public calendar has the next two on Friday, August 7 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at Town Square and again Friday, August 14 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.. Yes, the August 7 concert overlaps with the lighthouse's afternoon event. That is not a scheduling accident. Park at the point in the early afternoon, drive back into town for dinner, walk to Town Square with a chair.
Saturday mornings, the same public calendar shows the pattern that runs through the shoulder season: an 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. block at Gateway Park on August 8 and again August 15. That is the farmers-and-vendor window most locals plan a walk around before the beach heats up.
Where to Eat When You Are Not Chasing a Vacation Table
The restaurant map here changes depending on whether it is a Saturday in July or a Wednesday in September. A quick orientation for the neighbors, not the day-trippers:
| Spot | Where | Why it is on this list |
|---|---|---|
| Social Oak Chophouse & Wine Bar | East Tawas | Newer end of the dining bench, showing up on the current top-of-list for East Tawas restaurants alongside long-standing names |
| Bayside Restaurant & Lounge | East Tawas waterfront | A regular on the "waterfront restaurants" shortlist; the outdoor tables are the argument |
| Barnacle Bill's | East Tawas | Anchor of the local bar-and-grill scene; the Halloween Bash on October 31 tells you the calendar goes deep into fall |
| Boathouse Beer & Boozery | Tawas City | On both the general and waterfront shortlists; small enough to feel like a local |
| Northwoods Steakhouse | East Tawas | Full-service steakhouse with a stone fireplace and Upnorth wood interior for the anniversary-dinner category |
| The Collective | 821 Newman St., East Tawas | Not only the start-finish of the Summerfest 5K/10K. Look for evening programming through the summer, including a stand-up comedy night on July 31 |
| Bikinis Bar at Tawas Bay Beach Resort | East Tawas | The resort venue keeps live music on the calendar into fall, including Random Hoax on August 30 |
The one to book ahead is the steakhouse. The two to walk into on a whim are Barnacle Bill's and Boathouse. And if your visiting relatives have never had a Michigan Koegel corn dog, the concession at the beach still counts as a full answer.
The Rest of the Runway
After the anniversary weekend, the calendar keeps stacking events that resident households actually plan around.
The 5K on July 11 is already in the books, but Summerfest weekend traditionally packs a 5K Run, 5K Walk, and 10K Run, and the Chamber tends to repeat the format. Bank that for next July.
The next big date is the 34th Annual Labor Day Arts and Craft Show at Shoreline Park in Tawas City on Saturday, September 5, with more than 200 vendors and free entrance and parking. If you have hosted out-of-town family the last three Labor Days, you already know the drill. If this is your first fall in the house, this is the one to walk through with coffee.
Then comes the one the Lighthouse Friends have been quietly building toward: the Fall Harvest Festival at Tawas Point State Park on Friday, October 9. Campers are encouraged to decorate their sites, and the weekend includes games, lighthouse tours, and hayrides. The point is that the season here does not stop at Labor Day. Locals know that. Newer neighbors sometimes do not.
Why the 150th Actually Matters to a Neighbor
There is a version of the anniversary story that gets written for tourism traffic. It runs down the date the tower was built and calls it a day. The version that matters if you live here is different.
The lighthouse operated from 1876 to 2016. Because Tawas Point keeps growing due to accretion, the first lighthouse from 1853 ended up more than a mile inland by the 1870s. Today the current lighthouse is once again more than a mile from the tip of the point, and in 2016 the Coast Guard turned off the light in the tower and placed a modern light on a pole at the end of Tawas Point.
Translated: the geography that made the lighthouse necessary is the same geography that made it obsolete, and the same geography that is still adding sand to the end of your favorite beach walk. The 150th is not a birthday. It is a marker for a piece of land that is measurably different from the one the founders were pointing at, and the Pavilion the Friends finished last September is the new front porch on all of it.
That is the frame worth carrying into the weekend. Everyone gets in for free on Friday. Everyone gets a folk concert on Saturday. The point itself is longer than it was in 1876 and will be longer next August than it is this one.
If You Are Thinking About the House, Too
Most of the readers on this post live here already and are here for the calendar. If you are a homeowner turning a page on the property, or a family that has been renting an August cottage and quietly wondering what a year-round address on this stretch of Lake Huron would look like, TREO Realty is happy to talk through what is actually on the market from the Point out to the ridge, without the tourist gloss. Start the conversation when you are ready. The lighthouse is not going anywhere.
