The Lighthouse

Kat B

This is for the weekend Utata project. We're supposed to photograph tourism type shots about our town and the weather didn't cooperate. It rained almost all weekend, so I decided to go with it and make it look scary. Maybe it'll attract a Stephen King convention :)

The plans for the lighthouse were drawn up by Lt. George Mead of Gettysburg fame. The lighthouse was built by the US Army to combat the problem of shipwrecks on the dangerous coral reefs. It was the first of a chain of lighthouses built on Florida's east coast. It was finished and lit for the first time in 1860. The light house was a huge boone for the union navy because the lighthouse keeper, although a Southerner, felt that the lighthouse should stay lit for all ships.

In 1928, the lighthouse was converted to electricity, but during the process of changing it, a terrible hurricane struck the area. The lighthouse would have remained dark, but the brave lighthouse keeper and his wife found the old mineral lamps and weights and lit it the old fashioned way until the storm passed.

The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

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