By SUSAN SAULNY


ST. HELENA ISLAND, Michigan - History buffs and preservationists, youth groups and investors are stepping up to do what the Coast Guard and old men of the sea have done for ages: tend to America’s lighthouses.

As GPS units and the automation of navigational tools have rendered lighthouses obsolete, the United States government has been decommissioning the structures and transferring ownership to new stewards at no cost, preferably nonprofit groups. When it cannot find a proper caretaker, the properties are auctioned to the highest bidder .

The catch is that new owners must maintain the properties to historic standards. And during a recession, with grants and donations ever harder to come by, the lighthouses have hit hard times, particularly in Michigan, which has about 113 lighthouses - more than any other state.

“I’m telling you this, you cannot restore a lighthouse with bake sales,” said Scott L. Hollman, 69, who won the Granite Island Light Station in Lake Superior at public auction for $86,000 about 10 years ago . “I can never get over the fact that they built this whole darn thing in one summer, and it took me twoand- a-half summers to repair it .”

Lighthouses even have their budding collectors. Michael L. Gabriel, 56, a lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area, bought two deteriorating lighthouses at auction: one, in Chesapeake Bay, for $100,000, the other, in Delaware Bay, for $200,000. “The alternative was doing nothing and losing them to the point where they’re not salvageable,” he said.

Some of the new keepers are working hard just to keep the lights on. Or in the case of St. Helena Island, which is not wired for electricity, the volunteers are working to keep the candles lighted and the flashlights on.

Abandoned in 1922, the St. Helena Island lighthouse has been a $1.3 million job so far . In addition to the tower, volunteers have restored the keeper’s and assistant keeper’s quarters, a boathouse and a dock. The full-time keepers, MaryAnn Moore and Pan Godchaux, have no navigational duties other than pointing out freighters in the Straits of Mackinac to the guests. The Coast Guard retains legal access to the light, which still pulses at night, operated by solar power and automatic sensors.

Nearly 50 lighthouses have been decommissioned over the last 10 years. Many of those in critical areas have working beacons because boating electronics sometimes fail.

“What we need to do is find a way to make things like this work in modern times,” said Terry Pepper, the executive director of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association. “We still need lighthouses.”

But Mr. Pepper was referring to an emotional need as well.

Jennifer Radcliff, president of the Michigan Lighthouse Fund, said, “People need to know where their place is, and lighthouses acknowledge a sense of place that resonates in a real primal way.”