St. Simons Lighthouse and Lighthouse Keepers' Building

About this property

The St. Simons Island Light is a lighthouse on the southern tip of St. Simons Island, Georgia, United States. It guides ships into St. Simons Sound and warns of the many sandbars in the area. The original St. Simons Island lighthouse, which was built in 1810, was a 75-foot-tall (23 m) early federal octagonal lighthouse topped by a 10-foot (3.0 m) oil-burning lamp. During the American Civil War, U.S. military forces employed a naval blockade of the coast. An invasion by U.S. Army troops in 1862 forced Confederate soldiers to abandon the area. The retreating troops destroyed the lighthouse to prevent it from aiding the navigation of U.S. Navy warships. The U.S. government constructed a new lighthouse to replace the original, building it to the west of the original's location. It is a 104-foot (32 m) brick structure completed in 1872 and was outfitted with a third-order, biconvex Fresnel lens. The lens is one of 79 such lenses that remain operational in the United States. Fifteen of these are in use in the Southern United States, of which two are in Georgia. The rotating lens projects four beams of light, with one strong flash every 60 seconds. A cast iron spiral stairway with 129 steps leads to the galley (or watch and service room). In 1876, the lighthouse was overhauled. In 1934, a 1,000-watt electrical light replaced the kerosene-burning lamp and was fully automated in 1953. On July 1, 1939, the United States Lighthouse Service was placed under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard. In 1972, the Coast Guard placed rear range lights on two towers at the entrance to the Frederica River off of St. Simons Sound. Entering the entrance channel at sea and proceeding inward, keeping the lighthouse centered between the two rear range lights keeps one in the center of the entrance channel. The lighthouse is, therefore, still an active navigational aid. In 1972, the lightkeepers' cottage was leased to Glynn County. The Coastal Georgia Historical Society spent three years restoring the two-story Victorian lightkeepers' cottage at the base of the lighthouse, which was then converted into a museum. In 1984, they leased the historic lighthouse structure. For a fee, the public can tour the museum and climb the 129 steps to the top of the lighthouse for a view of St. Simons Sound and the surrounding area. The tower underwent restoration in 1989–91 and again in 1997–98. On May 26, 2004, ownership of the lighthouse was transferred to the Coastal Georgia Historical Society under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. The light mechanism is maintained by the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, led by Jeff Cole since 1993.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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