August 7th, 1789 Congress approved an Act for the establishment and support of lighthouses.
In honor of the 200th anniversary of that date, Congress passed a resolution to make August 7th National Lighthouse Day.
Let’s talk a little about lighthouses. They have been around for a very long time. In fact, two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are lighthouses. I will turn first to a small pop-up book “The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World” by Celia King, 1990.
The first is the Pharos (Lighthouse) of Alexandria, a white marble tower that was 440 feet tall, built by Alexander the Great.
The second is The Colossus of Rhodes. This brass statue of the sun god Helios, was built overlooking the city of Rhodes. It was about about 100 feet tall. Some say it straddled the harbor, each foot on a pedestal, with ships floating between them. They had a fire burning in the crown.
I have patches on my backpack from several lighthouses I have visited. This photo shows three:
Point Arena Lighthouse in northern California. I spent the night there, resting (from the 145 steps up) after a day of hiking. The First Order Fresnel lens was beautiful. Just north of the lighthouse, is where the San Andreas Fault- line comes ashore. Even further north is Fort Bragg where I picked up a few souvenirs at the Glass Beach.
Second is the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse by Datona Beach. That was the first time I ever drove a vehicle on the beach. My son had to carry his toddler daughter halfway up, and all the way down the stairs (It was 203 steps up.)
The third lighthouse patch was the Cana Island Lighthouse in Bailey’s Harbor, Door County, Wisconsin. It was just north of where we were renting a house on the Lake Michigan shore. We had to walk across a causeway, and then up 97 steps to the top.
You could say it was four lighthouses, if you count the “Fountain of Youth” St Augustine patch. After visiting the “fountain” and the fort, when my kids were young, we drove to the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Just kept looking for the top peeking over the trees. I jumped at the opportunity to climb to the top. It was my first lighthouse climb-all 219 steps up. Perhaps all of these lighthouse steps seem a little tough, until I remember that I climbed up to the top of the Cologne Cathedral, which had 533 steps.
I also have the book “American Lighthouses: a Pictorial History” by Jill Caravan, 1996. This is a nice coffee table book-that is oversized and full of wonderful photographs and stories.
One such photograph was of Drum Point Lighthouse we saw in Calvert County, Maryland. We were hunting for shark’s teeth at two beaches known for them, when we stumbled on a lighthouse and marine museum. This was an interesting lighthouse, one that had a screwpile construction. The leg supports were screwed into the sandy river or sea bottom. This was a six-sided building with two stories and the lantern room-cupola.
Of the many photographs in the book, I really like this last one. This is the lighthouse at Kenosha harbor-the North Pier lighthouse.
My dad would take my brother, sister, and I up to the Kenosha harbor a lot when we were young. We would walk out on the pier, when the weather was nice, just to touch the red lighthouse. Sometimes in early spring, late in the evening, Dad would take us to watch the fishermen using gill nets on the pier, to catch smelt. He’d shake his head watching them.
(The same head shake was given when watching the smelters at the Waukegan Power Plant. They would use dip nets to catch smelt. You see, We, would go to the beaches and put on hip waders, and use long seines, with a person on each end, to drag the smelt in. We faced waves that may spill over the top of our waders. We earned the fish we caught!)
In the summer at the Kenosha pier, there was this popcorn foodcart, and we would get bags of popcorn. My grandmother had said, that when she was dating Grandpa, they also went to the Kenosha pier for walks. Back in those days, they would buy tamales at the food cart by the pier. There you go, multiple generations loving that lighthouse, and pier food.
What’s a lighthouse’s favorite candy? Light-savers!
I hope I illuminated some special feelings about lighthouses.
“The library is every child’s lighthouse. It is every person’s
sanctuary. It is every town and county’s fortress in the face of
ignorance, intrusion and bad behavior.” Amy Bloom
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