Assateague Lighthouse, Virginia
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History of Assateague Lighthouse, Virginia
In 1831 Congress appropriated funds for a lighthouse a few miles south of the Maryland border on Assateague Island. Its chief duty was to warn ships away from a series of shoals that extend seaward like knife blades from the island. But when completed two years later, the forty-five-foot stone tower and its Winslow Lewis lamp-and-reflector system proved far too weak to perform this task effectively.
During the 1850s the Lighthouse Board launched a determined campaign to upgrade lighthouses along all of America’s coasts. As part of this comprehensive effort, the board decided to rebuild the Assateague tower, but the Civil War interrupted the project. Hence, the new 142-foot tower was not ready for service until October of 1867. When its first-order Fresnel lens finally began to shine, however, mariners saw an immediate improvement in the station’s beacon, which they were now able to spot from more than twenty miles at sea. An automated aero-marine beacon replaced the old Fresnel in 1961.