St. Augustine Lighthouse

view from the St. Augustine Lighthouse

The St. Augustine Light is on the north end of Anastasia Island, within the current city limits of St. Augustine. It was the first lighthouse established in Florida, in 1824. It was originally placed on a watchtower built by the Spanish in 1737 as part of the defenses of St. Augustine. The tower was built of coquina taken from a nearby quarry on the island.

The 1824 lighthouse was established on an old Spanish watchtower. The original lamps burned lard oil. The multiple lamps with reflectors were replaced by a fourth order Fresnel lens in 1855. At the beginning of the Civil War Confederate authorities removed the lens from the lighthouse and hid it. The lens was restored after the war, and the lighthouse was relit in 1867. By 1870 beach erosion was threatening the lighthouse.

Construction on a new light tower began in 1871. In the meantime a jetty of coquina and brush was built to protect the old tower. The new tower was completed in 1874, and put into service with a new first order Fresnel lens. The original tower collapsed into the ocean in 1878. In 1885 the lamp was converted from lard oil to kerosene. On August 31, 1886 the Charleston earthquake caused the tower to sway violently, according to the keeper's log, but there was no damage.

In 1907 indoor plumbing reached the light station, followed by electricity in the keeper's quarters in 1925. The light itself was electrified in 1936, and automated in 1955. The keepers' house was declared suplus, and St. Johns County bought it in 1970. The lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. In 1982 the Junior Service League signed a 99 year lease with the county for the keeper's house and surrounding grounds, and a 30 year lease with the Coast Guard to begin a massive restoration effort. A new visitors center was opened in 2000. The lens was damaged by rifle fire in 1986. The lens was removed in 1991, and restored to the tower in 1993. In 2002, ownership of the tower and lens was transferred from the Coast Guard to the lighthouse museum. Though privately owned, the lighthouse remains operational as a private aid to navigation for the United States Coast Guard in our nation's oldest port city.

Reports of paranormal activity
The lighthouse and surrounding buildings have a long history of paranormal activity. Allegedly, visitors and workers have seen moving shadows, heard voices and unexplained sounds, and seen the figures of two little girls standing on the lighthouse catwalk (who purportedly were daughters of the original lighthouse keeper and had fallen to their deaths). Other reports are of a woman seen on the lighthouse stairway or walking in the yard outside the buildings, and the figure of a man who roams the basement. This his led The Atlantic Paranormal Society (aka TAPS) to the scene where they shot an episode of their SciFi Channel show Ghost Hunters at the St. Augustine Lighthouse.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "St. Augustine Light".

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St. Augustine Lighthouse

St. Augustine Lighthouse