Interesting Facts About United States Lighthouses
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or framework designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire and used as an aid to navigation and to pilots at sea.
Lighthouses are used to mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals and reefs, safe entries to harbors and can also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and replacement by modern electronic navigational aids.
While we often think of lighthouses as a tall cone shaped tower, lighthouses come in many colors, shapes, and sizes. Depending on where the lighthouse is built, it may be tall, short, or squat. Lighthouses can be square, octagonal, conical, cylindrical or even skeletal. While many lighthouses stand alone, some have a building attached where the keeper of the lighthouse stayed. As a general rule, lighthouses were built of whatever materials were readily available. This could be stones, wood, concrete, steel, cast-iron, or even a mixture of shells, lime, water, and sand. Therefore, lighthouses tended to be unique.
The first lighthouse in what is now the United States was built on Little Brewster Island at the entrance to Boston Harbor in 1716. The British blew it up in 1776. The replacement tower, dating to 1783, still functions as a navigation aid. Known as Boston Harbor Light, it is the only U.S. lighthouse that is still manned. Click on the Boston Harbor Light picture to learn more!
The oldest active U.S. lighthouse is the Sandy Hook Light at Gateway National Recreation Area in Fort Hancock, New Jersey. It first lit the night in 1764. Click on the Sandy Hook Light picture to learn more!
The first U.S. lighthouse to use electricity is also the world's most famous lighthouse: the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. From its opening in 1886 until its deactivation as a lighthouse in 1902, its torch carried an electric light that was visible for 24 miles. Click on the Statue of Liberty to learn more! 
Arguably the most recognized and marketed lighthouse in America, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is inarguable the tallest. At 208 feet from foundation to top, Cape Hatteras is the tallest lighthouse in the western hemisphere and finishes second only to the light tower known as the Lanterna in Genoa, Italy (measured at 245 feet) as the tallest in the world.Click on the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse to learn more! 
The newest U.S. lighthouse is the Charleston Light on Sullivans Island, South Carolina, completed in 1962. The rather strange-looking triangular structure is also the only U.S. lighthouse with an elevator and air-conditioning.Click on the Charleston Light to learn more!
The first lighthouse on the Pacific Coast was the Alcatraz Lighthouse (1854), on the San Francisco Bay. Click on the Alcatraz Lighthouse to learn more! 
The United States Lighthouse Society is a non-profit historical and educational organization incorporated to educate, inform, and entertain those who are interested in lighthouses, past and present. They sponsor a Passport Program. A passport with a blue vinyl cover, similar in appearance to an official United States passport, is available through the Society and lighthouse retailers across the U.S. When you visit a participating lighthouse, you can get your passport stamped.
There are four panels on each page of the passport and each panel should have a different lighthouse stamp. When your passport is filled it will contain 60 stamps. Click on the passport below to learn more!
Now that you have learned all kinds of fascinating facts about lighthouses, let's travel to the state with the most: Michigan!
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