American Shoal Lighthouse - Florida

The American Shoal Lighthouse was the last iron-pile lighthouse to be built on the Florida reefs. The architectural design is almost identical to the lighthouse built on Fowey Rocks. Appropriations were first requested in 1874, but construction did not begin until 1879. The light was first displayed on July 16, 1880.

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The Coast Guard Takes Over

The Presidential Reorganization Act of 1939, in another one of those moves "in the interest of economy and efficiency" that aids to naviagation had gone through so many times before, abolished the lighthouse service and incorportated its activities into the U.S. Coast Guard. On July 7, 1939, the Lighthouse Bureau went out of existence and its personnel moved themselves and their equiptment to Coast Guard Headquarters from the Commerce Department building. Thus, did lighthouses return to the Treasury, the department they had been part of for so long.
[This message has been edited by Randy Kremer (edited 07-02-2002).]

The Keeper's Life

At Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, the female light keeper on July 2, 1906, struck the fog bell by hand for over 20 hours when the machinery became disabled, and two days later she stood all night pounding the bell with a nail hammer.

Hunting Island Light - South Carolina

Down the coast about halfway between Charleston and Savannah, the Lighthouse Board erected a light tower in 1859 on Hunting Island. Either blown up by the Confederates or undermined and toppled by sea erosion, the light tower no longer stood at the end of the Civil War.

Selecting a new site one mile from the end of Hunting Island, the Lighthouse Board built a new tower and lighted it July 1, 1875.

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Siege at Cape Florida Light

The Cape Florida Lighthouse went through one of the severest ordeals of any lighthouse in the country: an Indian siege. The threat of attack by Seminoles had apparently driven the keeper and his family to take refuge in Key West. He left the assistant keeper, John W. B. Thompson, and an old Negro man to maintain the light.

Late in the afternoon of July 23, 1836, the Seminoles came swooping in on the light station. During a heated battle with the Indians, Thompson, though seriously injured, survived the ordeal.

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[This message has been edited by Randy Kremer (edited 07-10-2002).]

Presque Isle Light - Pennsylvania

The Presque Isle light tower was rebuilt in 1867, and in 1870 the Lighthouse Board changed the name of the station to Erie Light Station. The reason for the change, apparently, was the desire to build a lighthouse on the north shore of the peninsula forming Erie Harbor - the peninsula now comprising Presque Isle State Park. This new lighthouse, with its fourth-order lens fifty-seven feet above the lake, went into service on July 12, 1873, and became the Presque Isle Light Station.

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Cape Sarichef Light - Alaska

On the Bering Sea side of the island, the Cape Sarichef tower was lighted July 1, 1904, and has been the only manned lighthouse on the shores of the Bering Sea. Like its sister lighthouse at Scotch Cape, the Cape Sarichef tower was rebuilt and relighted in 1950. Today its light is 177 feet above the sea.

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The Statue of Liberty - New York

Without a doubt, one of the most famous lighthouses in the United States is The Statue of Liberty. Built in France as a memorial to independence, the statue was formally presented by the French to the United States ambassador in Paris on July 4, 1884. It was then disassembled, crated, and shipped the United States. Although it no longer functions as a lighthouse, the statue, then known as "Liberty Enlightening the World," was originally lighted by nine electric arc lamps within the torch. The light was 302 feet above the sea and was visible for twenty-four miles.

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Barnegat Light - New Jersey

Located on the south side of Barnegat Inlet about forty miles northeast of Alantic City, this light was inaugurated on July 20, 1835. Within twenty years the mortar had deteriorated, and bricks began falling at an alarming rate. Moreover, the tower was only forty feet high and the light could be seen for ten miles - in clear weather. So in 1857 construction began on a new tower nine hundred feet south of the old one; its light was 175 feet above the sea. It was lighted on January 1, 1859. This is the light that stands there today.

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Jupiter Inlet Light - Florida

This light was first put into operation on July 10, 1860. The following year, the shores of Florida were blockaded by the United States Navy in order to prevent Confederate ships from reaching shore. In August 1861, a group of Confederate sympathizers rendered the light useless by removing the lighting apparatus. Relighted in 1866, the lighthouse has continued to operate ever since.

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Sand Key Light - Florida

First lighted on July 20, 1853, Sand Key Light is the second oldest of the six screw-pile lighthouses that extend from Fowey Rocks to Sand Key. In 1865 a hurricane entirely washed away the island upon which the lighthouse had been built. Since then the island has re-formed, and the Sand Key Light is now the only one of the six that does not stand entirely in the water.

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Jul 23, 1715, The first lighthouse in America was authorized for construction at Little Brewster Island, Massachusetts.

Thanks for posting in here, Larry!

I was getting awfully lonely! LOL

And as I've said before, Thanks Randy for almost single-handedly keeping this idea going. I appreciate it very much!!

One of the managers at my office emailed it to me. Don't expect me to be a regular!

Calumet Harbor Light - South Chicago, Illinois

This light was first exhibited on July 20, 1906. It consists of a rectangular fog signal house, a steel-framed structure encased in steel plates, surmounted by a conical steel tower 10 feet, 6 inches in diameter at the base, with a round lantern 7 feet, 8 inches in diameter, with the helical bars across the glass panels. The original Fourth Order Frensel lens is gone and the lighthouse now exhibits a modern plastic lens.

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Stannard Rock Light - Michigan

The light was first exhibited on July 4, 1882. It was a Third Order Fresnel lens made by Le Paute that rotated by means of a clockwork mechanism and was fueled with kerosene. Because of the extreme isolation and hazards of the station, few keepers have served here for very long. The Stannard Rock Light was being automated on June 18, 1961, when a propane gas explosion occurred killing one of the four Coast Guardsmen stationed there and seriously injuring two others. Much of the equiptment in the lower levels of the structure was destroyed and the light went out, but two days passed before the tragedy was reported. The station was fully automated in 1962.

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Fourteen Mile Light - Michigan

Built in 1894 at a cost of $20,000, this light marked the long stretch of unmarked coast between Ontonagon and the upper entrance to the Keweenaw Waterway. On July 30, 1984, vandals started a fire which burned the lightouse down.

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Passage Island Light - Michigan

The light was first exhibited on July 1, 1882. It marks the northeastern end of Isle Royale, guiding vessels into Thunder Bay, and it is the northernmost American lighthouse on the Great Lakes.

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