Cape San Blas Lighthouse

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      Cape San Blas Lighthouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cape San Bias is a 750-acre piece of land that juts out into the hurricane-prone Gulf from the crook of the narrow St. Joseph's peninsula, near the town of Port St. Joe, Fl. Extending five or six miles from Cape San Blas is a shoal that created a formidable navigational hazard to ships traveling along the coast during the nineteenth century.

To warn seafarers of the hazard, in 1847 Congress appropriated $8,000 for a lighthouse. Two years later a conical brick tower, similar to those that had been built in the Northeast, was completed. The signal from the 85-foot high structure could be seen for 10 miles offshore. During a storm in 1851, this first structure was destroyed.

Construction of the new lighthouse tower was not without its problems. The ship bringing the prefabricated tower to the Cape sank. Fortunately, the water was so shallow that the structure was salvaged. Erecting the tower was further delayed when workers came down with malaria. Finally, by June 1885, the 96-foot high, iron skeleton lighthouse was placed in service.

Around this time, two wood-frame dwellings for the keepers were constructed. The two keepers' quarters are identical, two-story, wood frame cottages on low concrete pier foundations, each with two brick chimneys. The L-shaped structures were originally mirror images of each other. The interior of each residence contains two main rooms on each floor. Originally all of the primary surfaces and finishes of the interior were wood. The sea again threatened the Cape site by 1916. To avert another disaster, in 1919 the Bureau of Lighthouses moved the Cape San Blas lighthouse inland and the keepers' quarters to their present location.

In 1869, the Lighthouse Board reported that the beach in front of the lighthouse was eroding swiftly and needed protection from the sea's encroachment. By 1875, the waters of the Gulf had moved to within 150 feet of the tower's base. Within another three years, the sea's waves lapped the base of the tower. By 1882, it stood in eight feet of water.

This "skeletal" lighthouse has eight cast iron legs that support the "watch room" and lantern at the top of the tower. The legs are bolted into concrete foundations. The type of construction allowed less resistance to wind-and-wave action and reduced the weight of the structure on the soft, sandy earth. Access to the lantern is up a central, cast-iron-plate cylinder with a spiral metal stairway.

operation of the LORAN station and lighthouse.

Manufactured by Rarbier Benard & Ture in France, the third-order bi-valve (or "clam shell") lens is made of over two hundred cast-glass prisms, each hand polished to optic quality and precise dimensions. The prisms are set into a bronze frame. At 101 feet above sea level, the electric beacon could be seen for 25 miles as it flashed white for one second every twenty seconds.

The lighthouse station was used as a manned   LORAN Station until 1972, when it was automated. On January 18, 1996, the Coast Guard deactivated the lighthouse as an active aid to navigation.