In December 1851, the United States Government purchased Green Island from Alfred P. Edwards. $5,000 was appropriated for construction of a lighthouse, and by 1855 a wooden structure similar to Cedar Point Lighthouse had been built at the west end of the island. The tower was attached to a keeper's quarters and featured "a costly French mirror." These burned in1863

In 1864, construction began on a new two-story lighthouse on Green Island. By July, 1865, the square tower and adjoining keeper's house of limestone was completed. A small barn was erected for the keeper's livestock, which included a 3-acre partially wooded fenced in pasture. A boathouse was built at the northeastern corner of the island in 1889 and was connected to the lighthouse by a wooden plank walk, which was replaced by concrete around 1920. The island's natural supply of strontium was exhausted by 1898, and in 1926, the U. S. Lighthouse Service abandoned the lighthouse. However, the light in the tower remained active until 1939, when the Coast Guard installed an automated light atop an erector tower.

The island then came under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, managed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources as a wildlife refuge. Signs posted indicate that the island is off limits to the public. However, some individuals do not obey signs and are intent on destroying history. A fire started by trespassers gutted the old lighthouse and all that remains today is a burned out shell of limestone walls.

The historic lighthouse that was built to guide vessels safely through South Passage around the Lake Erie Islands is overgrown with brush and trees. Like the jungles of South America, the vegetation has obliterated the lighthouse to the extent one hardly knows it's still there.