Port Austin, MI

Port Austin is a Huron County village at the tip of Michigan’s Thumb, with 622 residents in the 2020 census. The village faces Lake Huron at the end of the peninsula, with Port Austin Township around it and Port Crescent State Park just outside town. The shoreline is the whole orientation: harbor water, sandy beaches, rocky points, and the open lake make this a place where roads keep returning to the coast. Turnip Rock sits offshore at Point aux Barques, northeast of the village, and is reached by water.

Port Austin’s local map includes the three-mile Lake Huron shoreline of Port Crescent State Park, the old Port Crescent settlement, and the harbor town that remains today. The vanished lumber-and-salt village of Port Crescent once stood where the state park is now, leaving foundations and planted vegetation among the dunes. Port Austin is a Michigan village where a Thumb shoreline, a famous offshore rock, a lost lumber town, and Lake Huron recreation meet.