Built in 1879, the lighthouse that now graces the Chesapeake Bay's Maritime Museum's Navy Point, once lit the way past Hooper Strait, some 39 miles south of St. Michael's. Known as a screwpile, cottage-style lighthouse, Hooper Strait resembles a small home that was built on special iron pilings that literally screwed into the Bay's soft bottom.  Because this style of lighthouse was actually located out in the water, as opposed to on land, it was highly susceptible to damage from ice floes. Consequently, the screwpiles, which burrowed down as deep as 10 feet, were an attempt to stabilize the structures.

The Hooper Strait lighthouse was kept watch by two men whose duties included maintaining the building, standing watch all night to make sure the light remained lit, and ringing the fog bell during inclement weather. In some locations, families were permitted to live in the lighthouse, but Hooper Strait was not one of them. Consequently, there were no domestic niceties in the lighthouse. Water for drinking, bathing and cooking was collected from the roof's rain gutters in large 200 gallon cisterns, groceries were rationed and arrived once a week from the mainland, and the bathroom facilities were located outside on the deck.  Originally, a platform attached to the pilings below the actual house served as the storage place for coal and wood for the stove as well as oil for the light. And the only means of entry into the lighthouse proper was a small sea hatch. The ground level staircase now attached to the structure was added for visitors' convenience, and was not a part of the original structure

All screwpile lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay were built according to a single plan but usage often varied. During its operation, the      four rooms on the first floor of the Hooper Strait lighthouse included a kitchen, an office and two bedrooms. It was in these rooms that the      rainwater was collected in 200 gallon wooden tanks and purified with chalk. 

The second floor, which is reached by a spiral staircase, has just two rooms: the watchroom and a spare bedroom for visiting Lighthouse Board inspectors. The watchroom contains the lighthouse's fog bell mechanism. Wound every two hours by hand, the enormous bell would toll out a signal unique to Hooper Strait. That way, mariners who were unable to see their exact location because of fog or bad weather, could determine their position by the lighthouse's bell sound. Once wound, the Hooper Strait bell would ring every 10 seconds.

As the name implies, the most important aspect of the lighthouse was its light, which can be found on the third floor. Originally fitted with a fifth order Fresnel lens, the cupola now displays a lens of the fourth magnitude. Designed by French physicist Augustine Fresnel in 1822, the Fresnel Lens System consisted of six different sizes, the   first being the largest and the sixth the smallest. Each lens is a   series of prisms that bends and deflects light, carrying it a much further distance than ever possible before.

Along the windows in the cupola hangs a piece of red glass. In a normal situation, mariners approaching Hooper Strait will see only white light. But as they near shoals areas, they begin to see red, meaning they need to turn back or risk running aground. Originally a fixed light signal, the Hooper Strait lighthouse now signals the letters CBMM for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in Morse code.