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Governor OKs funds to study lighthouse

State will look into feasibility of moving and restoring historic Sand Island structure

01/15/03

By BRENDAN KIRBY
Staff Reporter


The state of Alabama will spend up to $100,000 to study moving and restoring the crumbling Sand Island Lighthouse, Gov. Don Siegelman said Tuesday.

Siegelman on Monday had mentioned efforts to restore the lighthouse when he announced plans to revitalize Gulf State Park. He followed that up with a Tuesday telephone interview detailing plans for a lighthouse grant of between $50,000 and $100,000.

Siegelman said he wants to find out if it is possible to move the 1873 structure to Dauphin Island, where it could be refurbished into a working lighthouse that would serve as a tourism and educational opportunity.

"Visitors and schoolchildren could learn a lot about how things used to be done in the old days," he said.

The grant will go to the Mobile County Commission and be passed to the Alabama Lighthouse Association, a preservationist group that has worked for years to save the 132-foot tower.

The brick lighthouse, constructed in 1873, sits southeast of Dauphin Island just west of the main channel into Mobile Bay. Originally a beacon to ships cruising to and from the port in Mobile, it was deactivated in 1933 and has suffered the ravages of time and weather.

Warren Lee, president of the association, said erosion has taken a toll on the mortar. Cracks are visible in the structure, while metal banding has rusted and broken, he said.

The Alabama Historical Commission previously estimated that repairing the lighthouse at its present spot between Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines could cost as much as $10 million. Siegelman said he thinks it might be significantly cheaper to move it.

Moving the lighthouse would involve filling it with foam and loading it onto a barge, Siegelman said.

Members of the Lighthouse Association reacted enthusiastically to Siegelman's announcement.

"That grant will give us a handle on Sand Island Lighthouse," said Hal Pierce, who founded the organization.

The association has reached a verbal agreement with Dauphin Island and the National Park Service, which now owns the lighthouse. Under the pact, the federal government would transfer ownership to the town, and the association would oversee lighthouse renovations and maintenance.

Lee said he has not yet worked out a written agreement with the federal government.

Conservation Commissioner Riley Boykin Smith, who recalled admiring the Sand Island Lighthouse from Fort Morgan as a boy, said the study will significantly aid the association. "They've got great intentions, but it's hard to go out and raise money when you don't know what you need to do," he said.

Jim Hall, a Dauphin Island resident and a member of the association, questioned whether moving the lighthouse would be possible, but he welcomed the governor's willingness to find out. "That would either substantiate that theory or it will shoot it down," he said.

Lee said nobody has ever come up with a true repair estimate; the $10 million figure cited by the Historical Commission several years ago was not based on a formal engineering analysis.

Pierce said the study that Siegelman announced will be important in determining the group's next steps.

"We know it can be done," he said. "But we also know it's not cheap."

Although some preservationists have expressed a desire to rehabilitate the lighthouse where it is, Lee and others said that might not be workable. "If the alternative is losing it, I think it's crazy to be bullheaded and say, 'Don't move it,'" Lee said.

Hall said having the structure on land would dramatically increase the number of visitors who could see it.

"It's a historical landmark that dates back to just after the Civil War," he said. "There are a ton of people in this country that are lighthouse enthusiasts."

The organization maintains a Web site at www.alabamalighthouses.com. A separate Web site, www.sandislandlighthouse.com, also contains information about the lighthouse.