Lighthouses have helped sailors navigate treacherous seas for centuries. In honor of International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend (August 19-20, 2023), here are 12 fun facts about lighthouses!
#1: Michigan has the most lighthouses of any U.S. state, with more than 155 lighthouses along the Great Lakes!
#2: The first lighthouse was one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World. The Pharos of Alexandria was built in Egypt sometime between 300 and 280 B.C., and it may have been over 1,300 feet tall!
#3: Lighthouses are sometimes painted with different colors and patterns such as diamonds, spirals, and stripes to distinguish them from each other.
#4: The tiny island of Bishop Rock off the coast of Cornwall, England holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s smallest island with a building. You guessed it - that building is a lighthouse!
#5: Due to confusion over the Sweden-Finland border on the island of Märket, the Finnish accidentally erected a lighthouse on the Swedish side of the island in 1885! To solve this problem, the international border was redrawn so the new Finnish lighthouse would stand on Finland’s territory.
#6: The Tower of Hercules, a first-century lighthouse marking the entrance of Spain’s La Coruña harbor, is considered the world’s oldest existing lighthouse. It’s about 2,000 years old, but it’s still operational!
#7: Lighthouse keeping was one of the first U.S. government jobs available to women. American ladies could become lighthouse keepers as early as the 1800s!
#8: The first American-built West Coast lighthouse was built on Alcatraz Island, the site of a maximum-security prison at the time!
#9: The first American lighthouse to use electricity was the Statue of Liberty. She became electrically powered in 1886!
#10: A New Jersey lighthouse stood only 500 feet from the tip of Sandy Hook when it was built in 1764. But today, due to sand-shifting caused by littoral drift, it’s almost one and a half miles inland!
#11: Since 1929, East Coasters have celebrated a tradition known as “Flying Santa”. 🎅🏻 Every year, gifts are dropped from planes to lighthouse keepers across the New England coast!
#12: In Vancouver, Canada, 9:00 PM used to be announced every day with an explosion of a dynamite stick in a nearby lighthouse!
There’s so much to learn about lighthouses. They’re the perfect summer-themed history site! 👓