![]() ![]() Following orders, he reportedly removed the lighting apparatus, crated it up, and then buried it in his orange grove to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Yankees. Mills Burnham was the keeper of the light when the war erupted. Work on the lighthouse had just started when it had to be suspended due to the outbreak of the Civil War. Twenty bids, ranging from $69,600 to $28,000, were submitted for constructing the iron tower, and the low bid made by the West Point Foundry of Cold Spring, New York was selected. Congress allocated this amount on March 3, 1859, and the following year, a site roughly ninety feet from the cape’s brick lighthouse was selected for the new tower, which would be built of iron. The Board recommended that a first class tower, with a height of at least 150 feet, be built to mark the coast and estimated its construction would cost $68,751. From the deck of a vessel-say fifteen feet above the water-this light (65 feet high) cannot be seen, under the most favorable circumstances of weather, over fourteen miles, or within two miles of the outlying dangers. …No navigator who is aware of the existence of these dangerous shoals would be justified in running his vessel boldly for this light, especially in bad weather, unless his vessel is of very light draft. The light on Cape Canaveral, from its limited power and range, has never been of much, if indeed any, benefit to navigators, notwithstanding its prominent and highly important position. It was less than adequate at this as one captain noted in 1851 that “the lights on Hatteras, Lookout, Canaveral and Cape Florida, if not improved, had better be dispensed with, as the navigator is apt to run ashore looking for them.” The captain’s opinion was confirmed a few years later in an 1857 report by the Lighthouse Board that stated: Nathaniel Scobie was the light’s first keeper, but he soon abandoned his position due to the threat of a Seminole Indian attack.Ĭape Canaveral Lighthouse was built, in part, to warn mariners of shoals that extended for twelve miles off the cape. The tower’s flashing light was produced by a set of fifteen lamps backed by twenty-one-inch reflectors set in a chandelier that completed one revolution every three minutes and fifteen seconds. Hammond erected the tower for $8,465, and Winslow Lewis provided the illuminating apparatus for $2,794. Center wrote to Pleasonton on and reported that he had found a most eligible site for the lighthouse that was “of no value whatever other than for the purpose of a light.” Thomas C. Augustine, to select and purchase a site for the lighthouse. Stephen Pleasonton asked George Center, the customs collector at St. The original was a sixty-five-foot brick tower, activated in 1848, after Congress appropriated $12,000 for its construction on March 3, 1847. The present Cape Canaveral Lighthouse was not the first built on the cape. This effect was achieved by superimposing an image of the lighthouse on footage of an actual launch, and surprisingly, it is quite realistic. Just as he reaches the top to enjoy the view, a burst of flame erupts from the base of the tower, and the next frames are a distant shot of the lighthouse taking flight. In the movie, an Air Force sergeant is shown laboriously climbing the lighthouse’s staircase. This resemblance was taken to the extreme in a short film entitled The Lighthouse That Never Fails. In silhouette, the lighthouse even resembles a rocket, and as crowds have gathered to watch a distant launch, more than one spectator has mistaken the lighthouse for a rocket. Photograph courtesy State Archives of Florida It is said that Wernher von Braun used to stand on the railed gallery outside the lantern room to observe early launches from Complex 4. ![]() The lighthouse, however, has been more than just a bystander in the conquest of space. Rockets still roar into space near the lighthouse (such as the 1972 launch of an Atlas-Centaur rocket shown above), and just up the coast are the former space shuttle launch pads. Cape Canaveral Lighthouse witnessed the launch of the cape’s first rocket, Bumper 8, on July 24, 1950, and has had a front-row seat for subsequent launches associated with the Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo programs.
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