Sand Island Light (Alabama)
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Sand Island Light (Alabama)
Sand Island Light, also known as Sand Island Lighthouse (and historical light station), is a decommissioned lighthouse located at the southernmost point of the state of Alabama, United States, near Dauphin Island, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama. It is located roughly 3 miles offshore from the primary Mobile Bay entrance, bounded on the east by Mobile Point and on the west by Dauphin Island. The lighthouse is high. History The first lighthouse on Sand Island, constructed by Winslow Lewis in 1837, was a structure completed in 1839. The lighting was provided by 14 lamps in 16 inch reflectors and a first-order lens, known as the Lewis lamp, which was a poorly designed version, or Argand-style lamp. Lewis enjoyed a monopoly through his relationship with Stephen Pleasonton that lasted until 1853. In 1859 a new lighthouse was completed but was destroyed during the Civil War, on February 23, 1863, by Confederate John W. Glenn. The Confederate soldiers at Fort Morgan observed U ...
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Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh water. The northern and westernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, it straddles the Canada–United States border with the province of Ontario to the north and east, and the states of Minnesota to the northwest and Wisconsin and Michigan to the south. It drains into Lake Huron via St. Marys River, then through the lower Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean. Name The Ojibwe name for the lake is ''gichi-gami'' (in syllabics: , pronounced ''gitchi-gami'' or ''kitchi-gami'' in different dialects), meaning "great sea". Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this name as "Gitche Gumee" in the poem ''The Song of Hiawatha'', as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song " The Wreck of the ''Edmund Fitzgerald''". According to oth ...
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Lighthouse Keeper
A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as "wickies" because of their job trimming the wicks. Duties and functions Historically, lighthouse keepers were needed to trim the wicks, replenish fuel, wind clockworks and perform maintenance tasks such as cleaning lenses and windows. They were also responsible for the fog signal and the weather station, and played a major role in search and rescue at sea. Because most lighthouses are located in remote, isolated or inaccessible areas on islands and coastlines, it was typical for the work of lighthouse keeper to remain within a family, passing from parents to child, all of whom lived in or near the lighthouse itself. "Stag light" was an unofficial term given to some isolated lighthouses in the United States Lighthouse Service. It meant sta ...
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Lighthouses On The National Register Of Historic Places In Alabama
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ...
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Houses Completed In 1838
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.Schoenauer, Norbert (2000). ''6,000 Years of Housing'' (rev. ed.) (New York: W.W. Norton & Company). Houses use a range of different roofing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. Houses may have doors or lock (security device), locks to secure the dwelling space and protect its inhabitants and contents from burglars or other trespassers. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain one or more bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. A house may have a separate dining room, or the eating area may be integrated into another room. Some large houses in North America have a recreation room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, Li ...
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Lighthouses Completed In 1838
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ...
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Middle Bay Light
Middle Bay Light, also known as Middle Bay Lighthouse and Mobile Bay Lighthouse, is an active hexagonal-shaped cottage style screw-pile lighthouse. The structure is located offshore from Mobile, Alabama, in the center of Mobile Bay. History The station was activated in 1885. In 1916 the keeper's wife gave birth to a baby that summer at the station. According to the Alabama Lighthouse Association web site, the keeper brought a dairy cow to the station and corralled it on a section of the lower deck because his wife was unable to nurse the newborn baby. All had to be evacuated when the station survived but was damaged by a hurricane that year. The light was automated in 1935. The lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1974. In 1984 the lighthouse was stabilized by Middle Bay Light Centennial Commission in preparation for the centennial celebration. In 1996 the Coast Guard loaned the original Fresnel lens to the Ft. Morgan Museum for pub ...
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Mobile Point Range Lights
The Mobile Point Range Lights were a series of lighthouses at the entrance to Mobile Bay, at Mobile Point on the tip of the Fort Morgan peninsula, near Mobile, Alabama, United States. The first lighthouse was built as a landfall light by June 1822 at a cost of $9,995. The lighthouse was a conical brick masonry tower, tall. It was first lit on 29 September 1822. Fort Morgan was built adjacent to the lighthouse in 1833. The lighthouse was joined by the Sand Island Light across the mouth of the bay, about away in 1858. This resulted in the Mobile Point Lighthouse being downgraded to a harbor light, at the same time a fourth order Fresnel lens was installed. A period photograph (see infobox), taken prior to the American Civil War, shows two shorter masonry towers standing on the beach below the main tower, they served as range lights. The lighthouse was subsequently destroyed by cannonball fire in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War. After the war, a temporary w ...
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List Of Lighthouses In The United States
This is a list of lighthouses in the United States. The United States has had approximately a thousand lights as well as light towers, range lights, and pier head lights. Michigan has the most lights of any state with over 150 past and present lights. Lighthouses that are in former U.S. territories are not listed here. Most of the lights in the United States have been built and maintained by the Coast Guard (since 1939) and its predecessors, the United States Lighthouse Service (1910–1939) and the United States Lighthouse Board (1852–1910). Before the Lighthouse Board was established, local collectors of customs were responsible for lighthouses under Stephen Pleasonton. As their importance to navigation has declined and as public interest in them has increased, the Coast Guard has been handing over ownership and in some cases responsibility for running them to other parties, the chief of them being the National Park Service under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation ...
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Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the costliest tropical cyclone on record and is now tied with 2017's Hurricane Harvey. The storm was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane on record to make landfall in the contiguous United States. Katrina originated on August 23, 2005, as a tropical depression from the merger of a tropical wave and the remnants of Tropical Depression Ten. Early the following day, the depression intensified into a tropical storm as it headed generally westward toward Florida, strengthening into a hurricane two hours before making landfall at Hallandale Beach on August 25. After briefly weakening to tropical storm strength o ...
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Hurricane Ivan
Hurricane Ivan was a large, long-lived, Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread damage in the Caribbean and United States. The cyclone was the ninth named storm, the sixth hurricane and the fourth major hurricane of the active 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. Ivan formed in early September, and reached Category 5 strength on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale (SSHS). Ivan caused catastrophic damage in Grenada as a strong Category 3 storm, heavy damage in Jamaica as a strong Category 4 storm, and then severe damage in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and the western tip of Cuba as a Category 5 hurricane. After peaking in strength, the hurricane moved north-northwest across the Gulf of Mexico to strike Pensacola/ Milton, Florida and Alabama as a strong Category 3 storm, causing significant damage. Ivan dropped heavy rain on the Southeastern United States as it progressed northeastward and eastward through the Eastern United States, becoming an extratropical cyclone on Se ...
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Doomsday List
''Lighthouse Digest'', a specialty magazine from FogHorn Publishing in East Machias, Maine, is about maritime history with particular attention to the preservation of lighthouses and their past. Though it is geared toward enthusiasts and antiquarians in the United States, it is also quoted commonly in more academic publications, and its editors have become a staple presence in scholarly circles. Editor Tim Harrison issued the first number in May, 1992. Scope Coverage includes historic and current lighthouse events and an events calendar for lighthouse activities around the United States and elsewhere. They publish a " Doomsday List" of Endangered lighthouses, and have helped save a number of at-risk lighthouses. They have been credited with uncovering many parts of lighthouse history that had been unknown, or which were thought to have been lost. Each issue carries articles and unusual lighthouse-related stories that, for the most part, cannot be found elsewhere, and many p ...
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Lighthouse Digest
''Lighthouse Digest'', a specialty magazine from FogHorn Publishing in East Machias, Maine, is about maritime history with particular attention to the preservation of lighthouses and their past. Though it is geared toward enthusiasts and antiquarians in the United States, it is also quoted commonly in more academic publications, and its editors have become a staple presence in scholarly circles. Editor Tim Harrison issued the first number in May, 1992. Scope Coverage includes historic and current lighthouse events and an events calendar for lighthouse activities around the United States and elsewhere. They publish a "Doomsday List" of Endangered lighthouses, and have helped save a number of at-risk lighthouses. They have been credited with uncovering many parts of lighthouse history that had been unknown, or which were thought to have been lost. Each issue carries articles and unusual lighthouse-related stories that, for the most part, cannot be found elsewhere, and many phot ...
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