Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
June 1, 1905 A year after construction on it had begun, a lighthouse on the eastern edge of Middle Island in Lake Huron officially went into service. (Middle Island is about 10 miles [16 kilometers] north of the city of Alpena in Michigan.) The first person to serve as keeper at Middle Island Light was... Continue Reading →
May 3, 1856 A newly built lighthouse at Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, first went into service. Jones Point Light is located along the Potomac River, just north of where that body of water intersects with Hunting Creek. This lighthouse is a rectangular clapboard building with a circular lantern on its pitched cedar roof. Jones... Continue Reading →
March 28, 1922 The U.S. Congress formally authorized funds for both the establishment and improvement of navigational aids in Alaska, a longtime territory that would achieve statehood 37 years later. One of the end results of this congressional appropriation was the construction of a replacement lighthouse at Point Retreat, a cape on the northern tip... Continue Reading →
March 15, 1906 A caisson lighthouse in the Gulf of Mexico was lit for the first time. (Each caisson lighthouse has a superstructure resting on a concrete or metal caisson in order to better withstand potentially severe weather conditions.) This addition to American lighthouses off the Gulf Coast of the United States was specifically installed... Continue Reading →
February 21, 1910 On New Zealand’s North Island, a lighthouse on the tip of Cape Brett Peninsula was first lit. The first keeper for the Cape Brett Lighthouse was Robert McIver; Frances Earnest Lee served as this navigational aid’s first assistant keeper. Cape Brett Lighthouse was built to help better guide and protect the numerous... Continue Reading →
February 9, 1809 The South Stack Lighthouse in the Irish Sea first went into service. This navigational aid is located on a stack, a geological landform consisting of steep columns of rock in the sea. South Stack is near the Welsh island of Anglesey, which is off the northwestern mainland coast of Wales. The... Continue Reading →
January 18, 1852 A new version of Barra Rio Grande Lighthouse in southern Brazil first went into service. (At the time, most of the territory comprising the present-day Federative Republic of Brazil was instead part of the Empire of Brazil.) This lighthouse is specifically located on a sandy strip between the Lagoa dos Patos (the... Continue Reading →
December 15, 1874 In southern California’s Los Angeles area, Point Fermin Light on the west side of the entrance to San Pedro Bay had its inaugural lighting. This structure had been designed by architect and civil engineer Paul J. Pelz, who was serving the U.S. Lighthouse Board at the time as its chief draftsman. Point Fermin... Continue Reading →
December 1, 1901 A newly built lighthouse made its formal debut at Cape Byron in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) to help protect ships traveling through that area of the Pacific Ocean. Cape Byron Lighthouse, which remains in service today and can be found approximately two miles (3.2 kilometers) northeast of the town... Continue Reading →
November 8, 1873 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began construction on a lighthouse on Hereford Inlet in the borough of Anglesea (now the city of North Wildwood) in southern New Jersey. The Hereford Inlet Light was built to replace a life-saving station that had been installed at that location only a couple of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 