Florida's Fabulous Lighthouses

Photos and article by Eleanor S. Morris

Lighthouses remind lovers of the romance of the sea.

While the days of the uniformed lighthouse keeper, checking out his oil supply, slowly climbing the tower to clean his lens, have passed forever, the lighthouses remain to remind us of the romance of the sea. You have just climbed 219 steep steps and you're on the top of the 165-foot St. Augustine Lighthouse on the site of Florida's first beacon.

To see what he saw, close your eyes in the sea breeze and imagine scanning the horizon for a great sailing ship. Will it be friend or foe? Then look a little to the left and you can see the huge 208-foot stainless steel cross planted to mark the spot where Spanish explorers founded America's very first community, in 1565.

Founded 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, St. Augustine has had a turbulent history between the Spanish, the English and the French, and even pirate Sir Francis Drake, who attacked and burned the city in 1586. All this history, intertwined with the story of the sea, is gathered in the lighthouse's museum. You can touch artifacts from shipwrecks, like the British colonial sloop Industry, lost in the treacherous St. Augustine Inlet in 1764. See how the huge Fresnel lens flashes its beacon out to sea. Explore the treasures dug up from the lighthouse's trash pits that have become little goldmines of information for archaeologists and historians.

You'll want to hear about the incredible sea monster washed up on the sands of Anastasia Island in 1896. It was rumored to be a giant octopus, but it was measured and carried off the beach after a photo was taken of it. In 1824 an old Spanish watchtower in St. Augustine became Florida's first lighthouse. But in the late 1860s the US Government feared that the encroaching ocean was a threat to the tower's foundation. The current lighthouse replaced the old tower in 1871, and four years later the old lighthouse crashed into the sea. In the beginning lard was used as fuel for the light and the nightmark was a fixed three-minute flash. In 1885 the fuel changed to kerosene, but it wasn't until electricity was installed that the speed of the lens rotation produced a
nightmark of a 30-second fixed flash. Take another trip to the top, this time up Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse. This one stands 175 feet tall, taller than St. Augustine, yet only has 213 steps. But again, the view is breathtaking, of the inlet, New Smyrna Beach and Daytona Beach 12 miles away.

The inlet where the lighthouse stands today has long been known as the most treacherous in the Southeast. Since way back in 1565, when the entire French fleet of Admiral Jean Rebault was wrecked here by a hurricane, many ships have been lost. In 1569, Captain Antonio de Prado of Spain, exploring the inlet, dubbed it "los Mosquitos" because of all the insects there. The land bounced between the Spanish and English until 1821, when Florida passed to US control. In 1834 Congress appropriated $11,000 for the construction of a lighthouse, built on ten acres of land.

An attack by Seminole Indians in 1835 ignited Florida's Second Seminole War. They climbed the lighthouse, smashed all the glass in the lantern, and set fire to the wooden stairs. They took off with the lamp reflectors, and an amusing note is that the leader, Coacoocheee, wore one as a headdress at the Battle of Dunlawton three weeks later. The Indians won that battle, and the area was abandoned. Nobody came to repair the leaning lighthouse and in April, 1836, it toppled into the sea. It would be 50 years before
the inlet had another lighthouse--and a new name.

In 1883 "Mosquito Inlet" became the Ponce de Leon Inlet when the present lighthouse was begun. (In fact, while you're here, visit Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth in the nearby Ancient Historic Town, Seloy, a National Archaeological Park.) Night after night, since 1887, this tall sentinel of brick and granite flashed its faithful warning "to the men who go down to the sea in ships." This second lighthouse is the one you'll climb, for the view, and then back down again for the history chronicled below.

The first lighthouse's Winslow Lewis Agand lamps were improved in 1855 by a 4th order Fresnel lamp, which could be seen much farther out to sea. The new lighthouse began with a kerosene Fresnel lens. First lighted on November 1, 1887, it could be seen 20 miles out to sea. Then in 1909 the kerosene lamp was replaced by an incandescent vapor lamp, which in turn was replaced by a 500-watt electric lamp in 1933. By 1953 the lighthouse was automated and the keepers and their families left.

Among the preserved buildings serving the lighthouse you'll find the Second Assistant Keepers Dwelling as the Lighthouse Museum, with artifacts, photographs, charts, early uniforms and documents telling the story of the lighthouse and its place on Ponce Inlet. Other buildings include a Lens Exhibit Building and a Boatyard.

Both the St. Augustine Lighthouse and the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse remain active aids to the United States Coast Guard, as well as testimonials to the romance of the sea.

Copyright Eleanor S. Morris