Port Sanilac Light placement and the unique shape were dictated by and created because of budgetary constraints (Congress appropriated only half the money requested). Designed by Eleventh District Engineer Captain Charles E. L. B. Davis, the design has been called "both unique and architecturally significant in its elegance." The tower is white with a red roof. This "handsome" lighthouse shares its design with only one other, Ile Aux Galets, also known as Skilligallee Island Light, on Lake Michigan. The Port Sanilac Light tower is capped with a cast iron lantern room, which still houses a fourth order Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier and
Ship John Shoal Light which there was no room in the light itself. In 1973 the light was automated, and four years later the original Fresnel lens was removed and replaced by a solar powered beacon, whose solar panels stand on the platform where the tanks once rested. In June 2011, the General Services Administration made the Ship John Shoal Light (along with 11 others) available at no cost to public organizations willing to preserve them. Ship John Shoal Light The Ship John Shoal Light marks the north side of the ship channel in Delaware Bay on the east coast of the United States,