cf-banner.jpg
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177054 04/04/02 01:44 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Cape Henlopen - Delaware

On April 13, 1926, a severe storm undermined the Cape Henlopen tower and it toppled onto the beach below.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177055 04/05/02 02:05 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Minots Ledge Lighthouse - Massachusetts

On April 17, 1851, the first Minots Ledge Lighthouse was destroyed by a severe storm.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177056 04/05/02 11:44 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Point Bonita Light - California

On April 30, 1855, Point Bonita Lighthouse was lighted for the first time. This station had the first fog station on the West Coast.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177057 04/06/02 11:22 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Point Arena Lighthouse - California

On April 18, 1906, an earthquake - the same one that so devasted San Francisco - wrecked the tower and the First-Order lens at Point Arena.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177058 04/07/02 01:55 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Scotch Cap Lighthouse - Alaska

An octagonal wooden tower supported the light, which was ninety feet above the sea, until April 1, 1946, when an earthquake and tidal wave swept the station, with it's five keepers, into the sea. There were no survivors.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177059 04/08/02 09:56 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Marblehead Lighthouse - Mass.

The light at Marblehead, Massachusetts, was established in 1836. Its tower was low, but adequate for the time. But as the years rolled by, houses rose up around the station and obscured the light. After more than a decade of suspending the light from a 100-foot mast, the Lighthouse Board erected a new tower, 100 feet tall, on the site of the old one and lighted it April 17, 1896.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177060 04/10/02 06:05 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Mona Island Light - Puerto Rico

The main purpose of the light was to guide ships through the Mona Passage. The surface up the side of the island was so rough that the workmen had to blast a trail to the top. Through presistence and hard work the workmen transported the parts to the top, and soon began erecting a skeleton tower whose second-order lens was fifty-two feet above the ground. The keeper exhibited the light April 30, 1900.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177061 04/11/02 09:49 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Whitefish Point Light - Michigan

Probably the smallest wreck ever on Lake Superior involved no ships at all - only a surfboat and two stranded fisherman. One afternoon in April 1933, a pair of Michigan sportsmen were very unhappily surprised to discover that the field of ice they were fishing had broken away from the mainland and drifted out onto the open lake. A Coast Guard surfboat raced across the lake to rescue the luckless anglers. Unfortunately, the boat was caught and crushed between two massive blocks of groaning ice, leaving three coastguardsmen marooned along with the fishermen. Eventually, the keeper of Whitefish Point Light Station managed to reach the stranded men and bring them back to the lighthouse.
[This message has been edited by Randy Kremer (edited 04-11-2002).]

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177062 04/14/02 12:44 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Point Sur Lighthouse - California

One of the shipwrecks responsible for the establishment of Point Sur Light was that of the steamer Ventura. She went down off the point April 20, 1879 with a variety of cargo including silks, linens, hardware, wagon parts and farm tools. The local folk had a field day recovering the spoils from the beach, and for years, the farms in the area made good use of what providence had brought them.

The original first order lens in the Point Sur tower is presently on loan and display at the Alan Knight Museum in Monterey.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177063 04/14/02 02:55 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
St. George Reef - California

When the Coast Guard took over the lighthouse the duty was of shorter duration but the problems persisted, especially in the landings.
On April 5, 1951, the worst single accident at a California lighthouse occurred when five Coast Guardsmen were thrown into the rough seas while the station boat was being launched. Three perished.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177064 04/17/02 12:07 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Portsmouth Harbor Light - New Hampshire

Colonial governments had very little money to spend on public works and were generally stingy with navigational improvements such as lighthouses. In New Hampshire, the first navigational light was so modest that it was not really a lighthouse at all. Each night, beginning in April 1771, a keeper hoisted a small lantern to the top of the flagpole at Fort William and Mary on the banks of the Piscataqua River. The costs of even this low-budget effort were paid, not by the colony, but by a levy on ships sailing in and out of Portsmouth Harbor. The name of the flagpole light keeper has been lost in the tides of history, but legend has it that he loaded gunpowder from the fort onto a wagon and sent it to the Minuteman army that battled the British at Bunker Hill. Perhaps he hoped that under an American government he might become keeper of a true lighthouse. And maybe he got his wish.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177065 04/18/02 01:31 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Cape Arago Lighthouse - Oregon

It was a sad day for fanciers of lighthouses when the Cape Arago station succumbed to automation on April 15, 1966.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177066 04/18/02 08:49 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Point Isabel Light - Texas

Saving the light station from the wrecker's ball or the hands of vandals, the Texas Legislature in 1947 authorized its acquistion by the Texas State Parks Board, providing twenty-five thousand dollars for repairs and maintenance. A number of months passed before the agency assumed actual resposibility for the site, but in 1951 contracts were let for its general rehabilitation. In ceremonies held at the base of the historic lighthouse on April 26, 1952, the structure was dedicated as a Texas state park.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177067 04/21/02 10:21 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Burrows Island Lighthouse - Washington

In 1903, $15,000 was appropriated to build the station. Three years later, on April 1, 1906, the first light was displayed from a fourth-order Frensel lens. Still in use today, this fixed light has red sectors directed over Allan Island and Dennis Shoal to indicate their presence south of the light.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177068 04/22/02 09:12 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Ediz Hook Lighthouse - Washington

A ten-acre lighthouse reservation established was in 1862 by an executive order by Abraham Lincoln. In 1865 the bonfire beacon was replaced by a white, two-story house with a short, squat tower projecting from one side of the roof. A fifth-order Fresnel lens was mounted in the tower and lit on April 2, 1865.

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177069 04/22/02 09:31 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Slip Point Lighthouse - Washington

Slip Point, on the east end of Clallam Bay, was the fourth and last lighthouse built on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was lit on April 1, 1905. A lens lantern was mounted on the side of a small fog signal building that stood on a narrow bluff beneath a steep, wooded hillside. West of the fog signal building, the keeper's dwelling stood in an open swale on the bay. To reach the light, the keeper walked a long, wooden catwalk built on pilings over the rocky shore. At high tide, waves crashed about his feet.

[This message has been edited by Randy Kremer (edited 04-22-2002).]

Re: Lighthouse Dates to Remember - April #177070 04/25/02 07:34 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Randy Kremer Offline OP
Super Wacko
OP Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,331
Point Wilson Light - Washington

A lighthouse was constructed at the tip of Point Wilson in 1879, with a new concrete tower being built in 1914. In addition to the beacon, a deep-toned fog whistle became part of the warning system. However, even with the guidance of the light, the palatian coastal liner Governor collided with the freighter West Hartland, with a loss of eight lives just off Point Wilson on April 1, 1921.


Moderated by  seagirt 

Forum Statistics
Forums39
Topics16,978
Posts184,640
Members2,579
Most Online10,155
Jan 14th, 2020
Who's Online Now
0 registered members (), 846 guests, and 4 spiders.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
SafeHarbor, Toots, Bluffhill, phtate, TexLight2022
2579 Registered Users
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.2