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5. Cape San Blas LighthouseCape San Blas Light Drive
The last of five lighthouses built on Cape San Blas (1838, 1847, 1856, 1859, and 1885). The first lighthouse was built at its northwest tip on St. Joseph Bay; the rest to the south on the Gulf of Mexico. In 1918, the 1885 lighthouse—a 98-foot-tall iron skeleton tower—was moved to its present location following a hurricane in 1916 that eroded the beach protecting the lighthouse.
When the city of St. Joseph was abandoned early in the 1840s, the St. Joseph Bay Lighthouse was dismantled and used to build a new lighthouse at the cape’s elbow. Completed in 1848, the lighthouse collapsed during a storm on August 23-24, 1851, along with nearby lighthouses at Cape St. George and Dog Island. A year later Congress appropriated $12,000 for a second lighthouse, which went into operation November 1855. Ten months later on August 10, 1856, a hurricane destroyed the tower. Again Congress allocated funds for a third tower, which was lit May 1, 1858. The lighthouse was abandoned during the Civil War, during which the keeper’s house and the wooden portions of the tower were burned. The lighthouse returned to operation July 23, 1865. Again the lighthouse was threatened by the encroaching Gulf. On July 3, 1882, waves undermined the foundation of the tower and it fell into the sea. In 1883, Congress appropriated $35,000 to build an iron skeleton tower. The tower was manufactured in the North and transported by ship to the Cape. It came into full operation June 1885. The life of the Cape San Blas Lighthouse keeper was often lonely and difficult as the nearest settlement was 23 miles away. Keeper Ray Linton finding “the lonely vigil and wide expanse of the Gulf too great a burden,” took his own life in 1832. Six years later another keeper was found dead from stab wounds in the workshop at the station by his 6-year-old daughter who came to call him for lunch.
In 1996 the lighthouse was deactivated and in 1999 both keepers’ quarters (built in 1919) were moved next to the tower. In 2002 one of the houses was restored. The second house, affectionately known as “Sleeping Beauty,” was stabilized and restored in 2005. The St. Joseph Historical Society plans to operate the keepers’ quarters as a gift shop and museum. Funds have been allocated by the state to renovate the tower.
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