Centuries ago, long before Columbus stepped ashore in the New World, lighthouses began to be built as navigational aids in the Old World, replacing the more primitive method of burning stacks of wood on hillsides. These “traffic lights on the sea” have evolved, of course, but their fundamental purpose hasn’t changed much since antiquity.
We’ve visited dozens over the past 25 years, mostly in the United States, and happily, there is no dearth of them. With some 700 standing on American shores, more than in any other country, we’re not likely to run out of new options any time soon.
Of course in the world of lighthouses, those here are relatively new, with the Boston Light, the oldest light station and second oldest lighthouse in the country, celebrating “only” its 300th “birthday,” in 2016. The white octagonal Sandy Hook Light in Monmouth County, New Jersey, America’s oldest, was new in 1764.
People are also reading…
By contrast, the earliest known towers were built in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago, and archeologists have unearthed remains of nearly three dozen from a similar era that were built by ancient Romans.
Today, the oldest extant working lighthouse is the Roman-built 180-foot tall “Tower of Hercules” high on a bluff at the Bay of A Coruna in northwest Spain, new around the end of A.D. 100. Second-oldest in operation is 115-foot tall Hook Head Lighthouse, built in 1245 by magnate William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke to guide shipping to his port at New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland. It has operated continuously since 1667. Both are open for tours.
We may some day embark on a lighthouse tour abroad. But for now we’ll enjoy the bounty here at home. The following are some of our favorites. Most have a (modest) admission charge.
Maine lighthouses
With a rugged coastline that angles for 3,478 miles (more than 5,000 miles if you count all the state’s islands), Maine has dozens of lighthouses, many of which can be visited, though some not by land.
Formerly a fishing village, now a resort town, remote Lubec on Maine’s east coast has the distinction of seeing sunrise before any other site in the country. It also has three lighthouses, one open for tours, 49-foot-tall West Quoddy Head Light in Quoddy Head State Park.
Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, the earliest lighthouse here was built in 1808. It was replaced half a century later with the current red and white striped tower and a third-order Fresnel lens. Today it also includes a museum, art gallery, even lodgings in a former Coast Guard station.
We were the only visitors on a late afternoon occasion, and park manager Shawn Goggin offered a tour. We climbed the 50-step circular staircase to see the dazzling lens, and enjoyed the superb view from 83 feet above sea level. Goggin pointed out Grand Manan Island, the three Wolf Islands and Campobello Island, misty-blue with distance, and nearby Sail Rock, the wave-battered easternmost chunk of U.S. land.
He also taught us a little Lighthouse 101. Up until the early 19th century, he said, lighthouses were lighted essentially with whale oil lamps or candles, dim enough that a ship captain might not see the warning until it was too late. Among the scientists working to develop a way to focus and project the light farther, was French physicist and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel. The multipart lens he developed was first used in 1823, and became a lighthouse standard.
Fresnel (pronounced Fra-NELL) lenses range in size from sixth order, the smallest, a foot or so wide and used in harbors or channels, to the largest first order, which can be up to a dozen feet high and six feet across, and can be seen 20 or more nautical miles (slightly longer than statute miles) out at sea. West Quoddy is one of just eight lighthouses on Maine’s coast that still uses a Fresnel lens.
Lubec’s Channel Light — aka the 53-foot tall Spark Plug, one of just three in the state — stands in shallow water between Lubec Beach and Canada’s Campobello Island. Lighthouses known as spark plugs are cast-iron structures built in off-shore locations. This light, with a fifth-order Fresnel lens, was built in 1890, automated in 1939. It’s been privately owned since 2007.
Three-hundred-foot-long Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Bridge crosses the channel — Lubec Narrows — onto Campobello (Canada, valid passport required), where the 32nd president and his wife, Eleanor, owned a summer “cottage.” Today, it’s maintained as Roosevelt Campobello International Park. Near the bridge is 44-foot Mulholland Point Lighthouse. It’s not open to the public, but the grounds are, and worth a visit for the stunning view back across the channel and the placards explaining the history and wildlife of the area.
If you’re a little adventurous, we recommend visiting Head Harbor (East Quoddy) Lightstation at the island’s north tip, one of the earliest lighthouses built in New Brunswick. The 60-foot 1829 lighthouse and 1840 keeper’s house occupy a dramatic jumble of boulders overlooking the Bay of Fundy. Getting there is a little daunting, as you must negotiate three long open steel ladders, a walking bridge, stretch of sand and a path among the boulders, keeping an eye on the time, as the tide can strand you out there.
Fifteen years ago, the wooden tower and house were in ruins, says Lou Brown, who was among seven volunteers who bought the site from the province for $1, and restored it (bringing in supplies by water). The Canadian Coast Guard maintains the light, a third-order Fresnel, visible for 23 nautical miles.
Other popular Maine lighthouses include the state’s oldest, Portland Head Light at Cape Elizabeth, completed in 1791; Cape Elizabeth Light or “Two Lights,” Maine’s first twin lighthouses, built in 1828; and the 1858 Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse anchored to a rugged cliffside on Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park.
For information about Maine’s lighthouses • visitmaine.com/things-to-do/lighthouses-sightseeing.
Due to the coronavirus, some of these lighthouses may be closed temporarily, check before making a special trip.
Other lighthouses
Maine, because of its especially picturesque landscapes, may be our favorite place to visit lighthouses. But we’ve toured many others elsewhere: No two are alike, and each has its own story to tell. Among them:
Jupiter Inlet Light, built in 1853, 108 feet tall, half a mile from the Atlantic in Jupiter, Florida; jupiterlighthouse.org
Key West Lighthouse and Keeper’s Quarters, built in 1825, 73 feet tall in Key West, Florida; trolleytours.com/key-west/lighthouse
Pensacola Lighthouse and Maritime Museum, built in 1859, 151 feet tall (with 177 steps) on the Naval Air Station; pensacolalighthouse.org
Barcelona Lighthouse on Lake Erie in Westfield, New York, built in 1829, 40 feet tall; barcelonalighthouse.org
Sodus Bay Lighthouse Museum on Lake Ontario at Sodus Point, New York, built in 1871, 45 feet tall; sodusbaylighthouse.org
Point Iroquois Lighthouse on Lake Superior at Brimley, Upper Peninsula, Michigan, built in 1870, 66 feet tall; pointiroquoislighthouse.org
Door County
Our most memorable lighthouse “experience” was our visit to Pottawatomie (Rock Island) Lighthouse on Rock Island State Park in Door County, Wisconsin.
To get there, you drive to the tip of mainland Door County, ride the car ferry five miles across Death’s Door (named for the churning waters that claimed so many boats) to Washington Island. From Washington’s Jackson Harbor take little passenger ferry Karfi on to 912-acre Rock Island State Park. We had been warned that the crossing can be rough, especially in early fall, the time of our trip.
It’s a ride we’ll never forget. We’d no sooner left the harbor when the heaving water sent the little craft into a frenzy of motion, careening wildly, rolling sharply to one side, then the other, sending plumes of water high over the bow, while we tried desperately to stay on our bench on deck.
There are no roads, only the five-mile rocky, root-webbed Thordarson Loop Trail, and no facilities on the island. Once you arrive, at the Viking-like boathouse, you walk, through old-growth forest to the historic lighthouse. If a docent is on hand, it’s open.
The frosty day of our visit, Bill Olson of the Friends of Rock Island was there and offered a tour. He explained that the first lighthouse here was built in 1836. It was replaced with the current stone structure in 1858, and outfitted with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. It was automated in 1946, and in use until 1988, when the Coast Guard put up the singularly prosaic 50-foot steel tower and beacon nearby.
Over the years 17 keepers manned the tower, climbing the three steep flights of steps every half hour all night, making sure the whale oil hadn’t run out, Olson said. Views from the top are spectacular, over Lake Michigan on one side, Green Bay on the other. Olson noted that because Green Bay freezes solid enough for trucks to drive on in winter, the keeper’s job was not year-round, and by midfall he and his family would have left for Washington Island.
Not wanting to miss our own ride back, the last of the day, we said our good-byes and hurriedly returned along the trail to the boathouse. From there, we could see a tiny dot approaching. It was the Karfi coming back bobbing like a cork in a typhoon.
For more information • washingtonisland.com/rock-island-state-park/
Due to the coronavirus, Rock Island State Park will be closed for the rest of this year, but will reopen in 2021.