Point Lookout Light
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Location | Point Lookout at the mouth of the Potomac River |
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Coordinates | 38°02′19″N 76°19′20″W / 38.0387°N 76.3221°W |
Tower | |
Constructed | 1830 |
Construction | Wood, brick |
Height | 41 feet (12 m) (originally 24 feet (7.3 m)) |
Shape | Keeper's house with lantern on roof |
Light | |
First lit | 1830 |
Deactivated | 1966 |
Focal height | 12 m (39 ft) |
Lens | Fourth order Fresnel lens |
Characteristic | Fl(2) W 5s |
Point Lookout Light is a
History
In 1854, the light was upgraded with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. The Civil War completely transformed the point. First, the Hammond General Hospital was built in 1862 to care for Union wounded. In 1863, Confederate prisoners began to be held at the hospital; and soon Camp Hoffman, a vast prison camp, was built, eventually holding 20,000 prisoners, of whom more than 3,000 died due to the harsh conditions, limited food rations and poor shelter from the elements.
A fog bell tower was added in 1873. In 1883, the lighthouse was raised to two full stories with a summer kitchen and additional bedroom added at the southwest corner. Also in 1883, a buoy repair depot was built on the south side of the light; in 1884, a coal storage shed was built to the south of the buoy repair depot. The new structures obscured the fog bell, which was then replaced with a new fog bell on the east end of the coal storage shed. In 1927, the lighthouse was converted to a duplex, more than doubling the size of the building. The duplex allowed for a keeper and assistant keeper to live on-site and still have some privacy.
The light was served by civilian and Coast Guard keepers. In 1939, the United States Coast Guard took over control of all U.S. lighthouses, and the keepers were pressured, but not required, to join the Coast Guard. In 1951, the United States Navy began buying property around the light. On January 11, 1966, the light was deactivated and the structures were turned over to the Navy. Civilians continued to live in the house until 1981, when a dispute over a failing well led to the revocation of a 99-year lease that the state had with the Navy.
The fog bell tower was moved to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in 1968. Throughout the 1960s, the State of Maryland purchased land north of the lighthouse and carved out the Point Lookout State Park. In 2006, the light was turned over to Maryland as part of a land-swap deal. Also in 2006, the Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society was founded to restore the lighthouse complex to the 1927 era. The lighthouse is owned by Maryland and is accessible one day a month from April to November by volunteers of the Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society.
Sources
- "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: Maryland" (PDF). United States Coast Guard Historian's Office.
- Point Lookout Light, from the Chesapeake Chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society
- Point Lookout Lighthouse, from Lighthousefriends
- de Gast, Robert (1973). The Lighthouses of the Chesapeake. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 58–61. ISBN 9780801815485.