Lighting the way with lighthouses
Ihave always had a fascination with lighthouses. It may stem from being out on my dad’s ocean fishing boat as the fog settled in on the Monterey Bay. The harbor mouth, already hard to identify from the water, quickly became obscured. I learned in an instant how critically important lighthouses are to seafaring folks.
Lighthouses are not an American invention. In fact, even our first American lighthouses were built while we were still the Cinderella to Great Britain. The East Coast was already dotted with lighthouses by the time we flung off British rule and took off on our own.
One of the first orders of business after the American Revolution was won was to build a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
The shoals off the coast of the Outer Banks are treacherous because the warm Gulf Stream ocean current and the cold, northern Labrador Current, crash into each other, creating powerful ocean storms and unruly swells. The violent currents shift and wash sandbars, reshaping the ocean floor unpredictably. The only sure way to avoid shipwreck is to avoid the area altogether.
Lighthouses are not for the purpose of marking a specific pile of rocks or a sandbar. They are navigational landmarks used in conjunction with charts and navigation tools. Each lighthouse is identified by the interval of its beam flashes at night and its paint pattern and physical appearance during the day.
Since the earliest days of the United States, lighthouses have been controlled, built and maintained by the federal government. Lighthouses serve for the safety of the shipping and transportation industries as well as adding huge charm to a seaside landscape.
The Cape Hatteras Light is known for its licorice candy diagonal stripes. It is essentially the third lighthouse structure to stand in that vicinity, with the earlier versions falling prey to the shifting shoreline and other weather factors.
The first structure was considered deficient and was destroyed during the Civil War. The current structure was built just after the Civil War. It was moved about 2,900 feet inland to escape the encroaching surf in 1999.
Moving the structure was one of the boldest feats of civil engineering ever undertaken. It is the tallest lighthouse in the country at 198.5 feet and it weighs about 5,000 tons.
Far inland on the shores of Lake Superior on Green Bay, similar water conditions create dangerous currents and unpredictable shoals. In fact, Door County, Wisconsin, got its name from the strait at the tip of the peninsula and Chamber’s Island. There were so many shipwrecks in the area that the strait was known as Death’s Door. There are 11 lighthouses in Door County, and many of them were built around the time of the Civil War.
Most of the Door County lighthouses are incorporated into the keepers’ dwelling. When I visited the Eagle Bluff lighthouse in Peninsula State Park on the east side of Green Bay, I found that though all of the Great Lakes are freshwater, the maritime flavors of the place feel as authentic as any of its salty cousins. Operated now as a museum, it is a quick time travel into 19th-century life with all of its pleasures and complexities explained.
For many years, water for household use was carried up from the lake.
In 1882, when the lighthouse was 14 years old, the lard-burning lantern was replaced with a kerosene burner. For years after that, the fuel was stored in the base of the tower which was part of the family living area.
When the second keeper was in residence, The Eagle Bluff lighthouse served to guide ships through the channel between the low-lying Strawberry Islands. The whole region of Door County reminds me of Nantucket/Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 1,000 miles to the east.
Both of these lighthouses are equipped with valuable Fresnel lenses. Developed to concentrate the light like a traditional convex lens but with much less mass and volume, the lens is ridged to provide powerful magnification, casting their beams 20 miles in fair weather.
Lighthouses are part of the history and charm of hundreds of American coastal regions, and even on our freshwater inland seas.
Only in America, God Bless it.