Navesink Twin Lights - New Jersey

By 1857, the twin towers were in bad condition and the Lighthouse Board decided upon erecting replacements. The board erected two brownstone towers, one octagonal and the other square, and connected them with a dwelling. The keeper lighted the new lights, both first-order lenses, on May 1, 1862.

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[This message has been edited by Randy Kremer (edited 05-01-2002).]

Cape Charles Light - Virginia

In 1858, the board began construction of a new tower 150 feet tall. Work progressed slowly, and in 1862 the new tower had been raised to only eighty-three feet. A group of Confederates destroyed the old light and pilfered materials at the construction site. Work soon resumed on the tower, however, and on May 17, 1864, the keeper lighted the new first-order lens. For the remainder of the war a military guard protected the tower.

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Cape Canaveral Light - Florida

The board recommended erecting a new tower 150 feet tall. Just before the Civil War began, workmen started putting up an iron tower; hostilities soon called a halt to the endeavor. In 1865, the board resumed work on the tower, completing and lighting it on May 10, 1868. The light from the first-order lens was 139 feet above sea level and visible eighteen miles.

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Galveston Bay Lighthouse, Texas, was discontinued by the Bureau of Lighthouses on May 29, 1933.

Bravos River Light - Texas

A light at the mouth of the Brazos River went into service May 30, 1896. An iron-skeleton tower 103 feet tall, it had a three-and-one-half-order lens that was still in use in 1952.

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Point Arena Lighthouse - California

Point Arena lighthouse was built on a site just 50 feet above sea level, and had a light whose focal plane was 150 feet above the Pacific Ocean. Lighted May 1, 1890, the Point Arena lighthouse served faithfully until April 18, 1906, when an earthquake - the same one that so devastated San Fransico - wrecked the tower and the first-order lens, as well as the keepers' dwelling. Workmen salvaged the lantern from the wreckage, placed it on a temporary frame tower, and installed a second-order lens. The keeper lighted it January 5, 1907. Later, the Lighthouse Board had a reinforced concrete tower built at the station. The light from the new tower's first-order lens is about thirty-five feet lower than its predecessor.

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Forty Mile Point Light - Michigan

In subsequent years the board requested a coastal light to light the darkened middle portion of the fifty-mile-long coast between Presque Isle and Cheboygan. In time, Congress appropriated the money and on May 1, 1897, the Forty Mile Point Lighthouse went into service. Rebuilt in 1935, the lighthouse today is a square brick tower attached to a dwelling. It is at P. H. Hoeft State Park.

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Lights of Puerto Rico

The United States had acquired Puerto Rico, and in time it was to obtain the Virgin Islands. Both territories already had lighthouses, but additional ones were sorely needed.

On May 1, 1900, a presidential order turned over Puerto Rico's lighthouses to the administration of the Lighthouse Board. Thus, the board inherited thirteen lighthouses and a badly-out-of-condition buoy system.

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Oak Island Light - North Carolina

The Oak Island lighthouse is located on a peninsula between the Elizabeth River and the Atlantic Ocean. It began service on May 19, 1958, replacing the nearby Cape Fear lighthouse. At 169 feet above the water, the light can be seen for nineteen miles.

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Red Fish Bar Light - Texas

Three lighthouses were established in Galveston Bay in 1854. Two were painted with red stripes, both marking dangerous shoals, and one was painted all white to mark the channel through the sand bar.

Red Fish Bar Light, white with red horizontal stripes, was effective both at night and as a daymark. The lamp, visible for ten miles, was thirty-five feet above sea level, and a large bell was used as a fog signal. The station was burned to the iron srcew-piles during the Civil War and was not rebuilt and lighted again until May 8, 1868.

By 1894, the tiny light was almost useless as an aid to navigation. A cut had been dredged through the dangerous Red Fish Bar, out some distance from the light, and a light on the edge of the channel would have been of greater service. The old building was so decayed it could not be moved, so a new light, similar in construction to the old one, was built to mark the cut in 1900. It was kept in service until 1936, when a red skeleton tower went into service.

Sabine Pass Light - Texas

The role as a navigational aid for Sabine Pass Lighthouse came to an end in 1952. Finally the arguments that the Sabine Pass Jetty Light and Fog Station served all the needs for a seacaost light at the mouth of the Sabine River overruled the opinions of people who favored retaining the old station. As the local press reported on May 20, 1952, "Last night at 7 o'clock ... [when] lightkeeper Steve Purgley ... turned on the light, it was turned on for the last time. This morning, he pressed the button extinguishing the light for the last time."

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Vandalism at Sabine Pass Light - Texas

On May 10, 1974, during the interval in which the federal government sought a new owner for the light station after Lamar College had decided it did not want it, the local press reported: "Vandals and thieves may finally have accomplished what 114 years of exposure to the elements failed to do - hasten the end of Sabine Pass Lighthouse." Unknown parties climbed to the top of the tower, and in the words of the newspaper reporter, "they stripped away its heavy copper protecting roof, exposing the interior of the ancient structure to the elements."

Toledo Harbor Light - Ohio

After the shipping channel into Toledo Harbor was enlarged in 1897, traffic increased substantially, and a permanent light to mark the channel was needed. Construction of this light and fog signal station began in 1901, and the light was first exhibited on May 23, 1904. The lighthouse structure is on a concrete base, which rests on a submarine crib filled with stones.

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DeTour Point Light - Michigan

The village of DeTour marks the southern entrance to the St.Mary's River, the connecting route between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. There has been a light at Detour, located on the mainland, since 1848. The station was rebuilt in 1861 and was similar in design to Manitou Island Light on Lake Superior. Since then, the light has been refitted several times and in 1902, the Lighthouse Board proposed to make the DeTour Light more distinctive and recognizable by installing a new lens that would produce a fixed light varied by a flash. On March 7, 1907 Congress appropriated $4,000 for this new lens, which was installed and first exhibited on May 12, 1908. The lens, along with the lantern in which it was placed, are the only parts of the onshore light station that were retained when the present structure was built in 1931 at the end of the DeTour Reef about one mile offshore.

DeTour Reef Light - Michigan

Spring Point Ledge Light - Maine

In 1895, Congress appropriated $45,000 to build a lighthouse there, even then it took two years to get the light into operation. Whenever costruction crews seemed about to complete the structure, storms swept in off the Altantic to undo much of what had been accomplished. Keepers finally lit the station's lamps on May 24, 1897.

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Rock of Ages Light - Michigan

One interesting incident took place at Rock of Ages when the freighter George M. Cox ran aground on the nearby reef on May 28, 1933, and keeper John F. Soldenski helped rescue the 125 survivors, who spent a day packed together inside the light tower until taken off the next day.

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St. George Reef Light - California

Rising like a medival castle from the depths six miles off the rugged northern California coast, St. George Reef Lighthouse smacks of intrigue and mystery. The most expensive lighthouse ever constructed by Uncle Sam, its nonconformity architecture, dressed in hugh blocks of granite, has made it a phenomenal monstrosity since 1892. The Coast Guard abandoned the tower May 13, 1975, prompted by its high cost of maintenance and danger to personnel. It was left in solitude vitually intact until 1983, when service personnel returned to remove the French-made, first order Frensel lens, and delivered it to the Del Norte County Historical Society at Cresent City.

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Again, Randy -- thanks so much for keeping this project alive!

And a congratulations to the National Park Service on the redesign of web site.

John

Thanks John! Don't be shy everyone! There's lots of dates out there to be posted! When John started this back in January, I started going through my books and keeping track of important dates for lighthouses for the year. I have learned alot thanks to you starting this John! Heck, it was in the dead of winter - had to do something!

Charleston Light - South Carolina

The South Carolina colonial government established a lighthouse in 1767 on Morris Island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor that survived well past the Civil War.

A copper plate inserted in the cornerstone of this lighthouse read: "The first stone of this beacon was laid on the 30th of May 1767 in the seventh year of his majesty's reign. George the III." Built by the British colony of South Carolina a few years after the conclusion of The French and Indian War.
[This message has been edited by Randy Kremer (edited 05-27-2002).]

Roe Island Light - California

Then there was Roe Island Lighthouse built in 1891 at the east end of Suisun Bay, 33 miles inland from the ocean. It is best remembered because of a terrible explosion that occurred on the eve of July 17, 1944 when two merchant ships at the Port Chicago ammunition Depot being loaded with thousnads of tons of ammo, exploded. The horrifying blast was just across the Sacramento River from the Roe Island station. The sky was filled with smoke and flame. Clocks stopped at 10 P.M., and many residents nearby thought the world had come to an end. As ambulances, fire trucks and rescue teams rushed to the scene they were aghast. Two ocean cargo ships, a train, two Coast Guards vessels, numerous buildings and 300 men had been blown to kingdom come.

Roe Island Light Station received major damage. Less than a year later on May 5, 1945, the station was deleted from the Coast Guard Light List.