On Sunday June 8th I was able to accompany a couple of other members of the Tampa Bay Harbour Lights Collectors Club, and Scot (I always forget his last name) who is the Manager of the Florida state park that the lighthouse is located in, to Anclote Keys to visit the lighthouse and get a feeling for how the restoration is going. We arrive on the island and walked up the boardwalk toward the lighthouse. The boardwalk is a vast improvement over the old way we used to have to go to visit the lighthouse: slogging through a swamp!
In this first picture you can see that the restoration of the lighthouse is going quite well. The contractor hired for this project, International Chimney, started at the top and the bottom of the light and is working toward the middle. They started by removing the very top of the lighthouse. They removed the lantern room, the service room and the service room floor. At the bottom of the light they replaced the doors and the first 2 steps leading to the entryway. The contractors have sanded and repainted the first level of the light and have since moved their sanding operation to the second level. They have also replaced the Service room floor with repaired or recast parts as needed. They have also completed the service room walls and have placed the first part of the lantern room floor back on top of the service room.
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In the second picture you can see a closer view of the top of the lighthouse.
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In this picture you can see what the tower will look like after the restoration is completed. This is the lowest level just above the doorway.
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In this picture you can see the repaired or recast lantern room floor sections waiting to be hoisted back to the top of the tower.
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In the next two pictures you can see some of the unreusable parts that will be buried on site when the restoration is completed. In the first picture is a part of the old service room floor. The second picture shows other parts, mostly from the catwalk and lantern room floors.
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In the final picture we see Wayne and Judi Hawes, Wayne is the president of the TBHLCC and a driving force behind the relighting of the lighthouse. Wayne is also president of the Florida Lighthouse Association.
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