Thomas Point Shoal (MD) repairs almost complete
Efforts to raise enough money to stop a 145-year-old lighthouse from falling into Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay were a big success, and almost all the repair work is done. All metal beams were replaced, along with all but one tie rod. Most of the work was finished in mid-June, and that final tie rod will likely be installed in the fall.
“It’s just a really beautiful structure, and it’s an icon of things that were done in the past,” said lighthouse manager John Potvin, a member of the U.S. Lighthouse Society.
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Couple rides out Isaias on Middle Ground Lighthouse (VA) with friends
Bob and Joan Gonsoulin rode out Tropical Storm Isaias at the Middle Ground Lighthouse with two of their bravest friends. The lighthouse is about a mile off the coast at Newport News, Virginia. The storm was raging with 70 mph winds, and they were awoken by tornado warning alerts on their phones and sirens from shore.
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New Haven (CT) Closes Lighthouse Point Park Due to Storm Damage
The City of New Haven, CT, closed Lighthouse Point Park on Friday due to widespread damage left behind by Tropical Storm Isaias. The park is home to Five Mile Point Lighthouse. There is tree damage throughout the park, causing a safety hazard for residents and visitors, according to a release from Mayor Justin Elicker. The park will remain closed until further notice.
Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont.
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Door County Maritime Museum: Fall lighthouse festival, Oct. 3-4
This festival includes air, land-based, boat, and adventure tours that together reach all 11 of the treasured lighthouses of Door County. Many of the tour excursions are unique to the Lighthouse Festival weekends, and provide visitors exclusive access to a lighthouse not typically open to the public.
Click here for more on the festival
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LED opponents rally against conversion of St. John’s Point Lighthouse in Irish Sea (Northern Ireland)
Objections are flaring up again in a long running battle to prevent a County Down lighthouse from converting to LED, with opponents claiming the digital light source would destroy the beauty of the light which they say would no longer cast its atmospheric loom across the Irish Sea.
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Harbor of Refuge and Delaware Breakwater lighthouses (DE) get new coats of paint
Both of the historic lighthouses off the coast of Cape Henlopen State Park near Lewes are getting makeovers. Volunteers from the Delaware River and Bay Lighthouse Foundation have been busy repainting the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse (white) on the outer Delaware Breakwater while a Delaware Division of Cultural Affairs contractor is repainting and making repairs to the exterior of the Delaware Breakwater East End Lighthouse (red) on the inner breakwater.
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Restoration of Hilton Head Rear Range Lighthouse (SC)
The Hilton Head Rear Range Lighthouse — overlooking the Arthur Hills Golf Course in the Leamington community of Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort was recently extensively restored for a second time since 1985. One of only a handful of surviving lighthouses in South Carolina, the Hilton Head Rear Range Lighthouse is Hilton Head Island’s only historic lighthouse.
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Happy National Lighthouse Day!
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