Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hillsboro Lighthouse’s beam down for repairs
The Hillsboro Lighthouse is in the dark, but it’s only temporary.
The light was extinguished last month for a maintenance project through Nov. 30, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
The project — run by the Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society — will replace the iron pegs at the top of the lighthouse that hold the upper ladder hook ring in place, said the society’s historian, Ralph Krugler. “In the olden days,” he said, workers would hook a ladder to the ring to access the roof for painting or other repair projects.
This is the first time in its 113-year history that the roughly dozen pegs are being replaced because they have corroded.
The new ones are brass, which will last longer, Krugler said. The repairs are estimated at $100,000, but it’s costing the preservation half of that because of donations, officials said.
The lighthouse — best known for being featured on a U.S. postage stamp — was built in 1906 and erected in 1907 at 142 feet high. In 1966, the light became the third most powerful in the world, capable of throwing a beam for 28 miles.
In 1974, it was automated, and in 1979 it was listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.
The lighthouse still serves as a navigational aid to let boaters know where the inlet is, “like the exit ramp on the highway,” but it’s not as crucial as it was years ago, said Patience Cohn, industry liaison for the Marine Industries Association of South Florida.
“In the age of virtual markers and [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] charts at your fingertips and GPS at your fingertips, the ability to navigate is at everybody’s fingertips,” she said. “The light is important but not critical. Years ago that was the only way you could navigate was by the lighthouses.”
Today, boat equipment “will drive them straight in.” There are even wristwatches with built-in navigation charts.
Still, “if you happen to be offshore and you lost your electronics and you didn’t have the ability to figure out where you were, it still gives you a visual beacon to aim for,” Cohn said.