THE LEANING TOWER OF SHARPS ISLAND

Pushed sideways by an ice floe during the winter of 1977, Sharps Island Lighthouse resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Sitting atop what was once a 600-acre island, the cast-iron and concrete lighthouse lies rusting and abandoned in about 10 to 11 feet of water near the mouth of the Choptank River in Chesapeake Bay. The existing lighthouse is not the first to sit here; the original had to be moved because of erosion, and the second was ratcheted off its foundation by ice. This caused the entire screwpile lighthouse to float five miles down the Bay, with its keepers still inside. All “aboard” survived. The lighthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places.