Frying Pan Shoals Light Tower is a decommissioned lighthouse located on the

Frying Pan Shoals The Frying Pan Shoals are a shifting area of shoals off Cape Fear in North Carolina, United States. Formed by silt from the Cape Fear River, the shoals are over 28 miles long and resemble a frying pan in shape. They provide excellent fishing. Th ...

approximately southeast of Southport, North Carolina, and from

Bald Head Island, North Carolina Bald Head Island, historically Smith Island, is a village located on the east side of the Cape Fear River in Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States. Compared to the nearby city of Wilmington to the north, the village of Bald Head Island ...

. The tower is currently privately owned and was formerly a

bed and breakfast Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...

retreat, and is noted for its survival through several significant tropical storms. The light tower is modeled after a steel oil drilling platform, known as a "

Texas Tower The Texas Towers were a set of three radar facilities off the eastern seaboard of the United States which were used for surveillance by the United States Air Force during the Cold War. Modeled on the offshore oil drilling platforms first employe ...

", on top of four steel legs that was engineered to be used as a lighthouse housing several Coast Guard members. The light tower marks the shoals at the confluence of the

Cape Fear River The Cape Fear River is a long blackwater river in east central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Carol ...

and the Atlantic Ocean.

History

The shoals have been patrolled by a lightboat since 1854 by the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...

. In 1966, the light tower was built, and was staffed year-round by a four-person crew until the operation of the light was automated in 1979. The station was ultimately decommissioned in 2004, owing to the advent of GPS systems on ships making the facility obsolete. The Coast Guard considered demolishing the light for use as an

artificial reef An artificial reef is a human-created underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, to control erosion, block ship passage, block the use of trawling nets, or improve surfing. Many ...

, but instead held an online auction where the winning bid was by a South Carolina diving and research firm Shipwrecks, Inc. in 2009 for $515,000. However, the company failed to make the down payment, and subsequently the tower returned to government hands and was sold again in August 2010 for $85,000 to a private individual, Richard Neal of Charlotte, North Carolina. In August 2011, the Frying Pan Tower was directly hit by

Hurricane Irene Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 ...

with measured winds of and waves of . An observational flight the day after the storm, August 28, 2011, showed that the tower had no visible damage from the impact. It was listed in an article in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' on light houses that have been restored to bed and breakfast facilities. In November 2012,

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

went within a few dozen miles of the Frying Pan Tower but due to its being a low-category storm at the time, the only issue was a few disturbed ceiling tiles due to a window being left open. In September 2018, the Shoals were in the path of

Hurricane Florence Hurricane Florence was a powerful and long-lived Cape Verde hurricane that caused catastrophic damage in the Carolinas in September 2018, primarily as a result of freshwater flooding due to torrential rain. The sixth named storm, third h ...

. Media coverage in the hours before the storms landfall noted the American flag on Frying Pan Tower being torn to shreds by the extreme conditions as the hurricane approached. This could be seen live from an Explore.org camera on the tower. Coverage of the flag was widely viewed online, and the flag was eventually given the name Kevin by livestream viewers. After the storm passed, the flag was recovered and sold at an auction to raise money for the Wilmington

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...

. In 2019, it went through

Hurricane Dorian Hurricane Dorian was an extremely powerful and catastrophic Category 5 Atlantic hurricane, which became the most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas, and tied for strongest landfall in the Atlantic basin. It is also rega ...

. As the eye passed over the structure, a weather station on the tower reported a pressure of 959.5 mb. Starting in 2018 and finalized in 2019, Neal divested all ownership interest to focus on the restoration efforts as the director of FPTower Inc., a federally registered

501(c)3 A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 5 ...

nonprofit. FPTower Inc. is organizing the restoration with volunteers, donations, and active promotion of the tower as a resource for education, research, and as an iconic piece of American Coast Guard history.

Structural conditions

The light tower is accessible by helicopter and by boat. A January 2010 onsite inspection by an engineering firm that was contracted by the Coast Guard determined that the helipad platform can indeed support a helicopter and that the entire structure, while in need of repair, was structurally sound. The lower stairs to the light tower were destroyed by a hurricane and the mid to upper section stairs have experienced significant deterioration due to the salt environment. The platform on the tower consists of two floors. The subfloor is a living area of approximately that includes seven bedrooms, kitchen, office, storage area, recreation area and toilet facilities.

References

External links

*
Frying Pan Shoals Light
at the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society
Pictures of the Frying Pan Hotel
{{authority control Lighthouses completed in 1964 2003 disestablishments in North Carolina Lighthouses in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Brunswick County, North Carolina 1964 establishments in North Carolina