Town officials in Cape Vincent (NY) seeks new uses for lighthouse quarters at Tibbetts Point
Hostelling International and the Cape Vincent, New York, Town Council have discontinued the hostel service at the Tibbetts Point Lighthouse keepers’ house. The hostel couldn’t attract enough visitors and was losing more than $10,000 a year for several years. The Town is looking for other ways to use the building.
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Point Reyes (CA) restoration to be celebrated on Sunday, December 1
POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE, CA — The National Park Service is inviting the public to attend the 149th anniversary of the initial lighting of the Point Reyes Lighthouse and the recent completion of its restoration.
The six-hour celebration starts at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. It includes interpretive chats in the lighthouse between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. A Spanish interpretation of the lighthouse will be available from 1-2 p.m. There will be stories and a lighthouse activity guide for kids.
The Fishwives Band from San Francisco will perform raucous and irreverent songs of the sea outside the Lighthouse Visitors Center from 3-5 p.m. The Sea Forager band celebrates the anniversary with rowdy sing-alongs.
The Point Reyes National Seashore Association will provide warm treats outside the Lighthouse Visitors’ Center 3-5 p.m.
Reservations or registration is not required. Organizers of the event say participants should dress warmly and carry a flashlight for the walk back to the parking lot at sunset around 4:30 p.m.
The $5.7 million rehabilitation of the lighthouse took 13 months and it was the most extensive one since the lighthouse was commissioned in 1870.
Click here for information on visiting the Point Reyes Lighthouse
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The battle over where to move the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse (CA)
The cheery little lighthouse, with its cherry-red roof and bright white walls, beckoned countless painters and photographers. It was such a mainstay in Trinidad that its image is included in the city’s logo. Then the ground began to crumble. Rain moved the earth. The bluff cracked, a sidewalk warped, and thus ended the charmed life of the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, which suddenly threatened to slide into the Pacific.
Click here to read the rest of this story.
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Marblehead (OH) repairs delayed until spring
It had been hoped that repairs to Marblehead Lighthouse would be completed soon, but the repairs are now slated to be completed in the spring. Most of the lighthouse will remain enclosed until all repairs are finished. Work includes extensive repairs to the stucco exterior, as well as repairing and repainting interior windows and installing a dehumidification system to protect the longevity of the interior.
Click here for more on this story.
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Eldred Rock Lighthouse (AK) is closer to becoming a landmark that the public can visit
The Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association has secured a necessary grant on their quest to lease the remote island property just south of Haines. Sue York, executive director of the Haines-based Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association, said, “This is the first step in the rehabilitation of the lighthouse.”
Eldred Rock Lighthouse is the only remaining octagonal lighthouse in the state. In recent years, it has been named among Alaska’s top-10 most endangered historic places.
Click here to read the rest of this story.
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Hillsboro Lighthouse (FL) Special tour December 7
There will be a special National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day tour of the Hillsboro Lighthouse in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Click here for details on this event
Click here for more info on Hillsboro Lighthouse
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Flying Santa kicks off 90th season
In 1929, Maine floatplane pilot Bill Wincapaw loaded some packages into his plane and dropped them at lonely lighthouses on the Maine coast as a way of showing appreciation for the keepers and their families. The flights expanded in the ensuing years. Massachusetts historian Edward Rowe Snow eventually became the Flying Santa, keeping the tradition alive into the early 1980s and visiting lighthouse throughout New England and as far away as the West Coast, the Great Lakes, and Bermuda. The Hull Lifesaving Museum continued the flights for some years, and then the Friends of Flying Santa was formed as a nonprofit organization in 1997.
The Friends’ mission remains dedicated to Captain William Wincapaw and Edward Rowe Snow’s philosophy that lighthouse keepers and Coast Guard crews were true lifesavers and deserved to be recognized for their efforts. Today’s helicopter visits and gifts for the children are small tokens of appreciation for the outstanding work of the United States Coast Guard and their supportive families. Click here to read more about Friends of Flying Santa.
Click below to hear an interview with Friends of Flying Santa President Brian Tague on the U.S. Lighthouse podcast “Light Hearted”
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U.S. Lighthouse Society News is produced by the U.S. Lighthouse Society to support lighthouse preservation, history, education and research. If you have items of interest to the lighthouse community and its supporters, please email them to Jeremy at Jeremy@uslhs.org
Jeremy D’Entremont is the author of more than 20 books and hundreds of articles on lighthouses and maritime history. He is the president and historian for the American Lighthouse Foundation and founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses, and he has lectured and narrated cruises throughout the Northeast and in other regions. He is also the producer and host of the U.S. Lighthouse Society podcast, “Light Hearted.” He can be emailed at Jeremy@uslhs.org