|
The tallest concrete lighthouse ever built by the United States of America is today an endangered lighthouse with little hope of ever being restored or saved for posterity.
Located on an uninhabited island in the Caribbean, that was originally discovered by sailors from Christopher Columbus’s 1504 expedition, the Navassa Island Lighthouse, at 162-feet tall, sits today as an abandoned decaying monument to another era.
Navassa Island was declared a United States Territory under the Guano Islands Act of 1858. Almost since that date, even though there is no fresh water on the island, for many years the Navassa Phosphate Company of Baltimore, Maryland maintained an active mining operation on the island with over 150 employees. Ruins of the mining operation that was abandoned in 1901 are still evident on the island.
With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 it was realized that a lighthouse was needed here to help guide the passage between Cuba and Haiti.
Building a lighthouse on Navassa Island was one of the most difficult construction projects ever undertaken by the United States Lighthouse Service. There is no harbor, and cliffs rise from all sides of the island. Every single item, including water had to be brought to the island by ship. Skilled employees came from the United States mainland, and laborers were transported from Jamaica and Cuba. The nearest ports were Guantanamo, Cuba, about 90 miles away and Kingston, Jamaica, which is about 110 miles away. Small vessels had to maneuver in close to the cliffs and then everything needed to be hoisted up to the island. Fresh food was always in short supply and the laborers had to bring all supplies up to the lighthouse site via a hand pushed railway carts.
The lighthouse was completed in 1917 and a head keeper and two assistants were assigned to the station.
Although the lighthouse keepers had elaborate living quarters, it may have been the most remote assignment every given to keepers of the United States Lighthouse Service, with supply and mail boats making only infrequent stops.
Likely because of its remoteness, the lighthouse was an early designation for automation, which came about in 1929 and the lighthouse keepers were removed.
After automation, maintenance crews only visited the island lighthouse station twice a year. The exception to this was during World War II when the U.S. Navy set up a small outpost on the island to monitor possible enemy vessels.
Although recorded memories and photographs of the lighthouse keepers who lived on the island may be elusive, the island’s controversial and interesting history is not.
A revolt of sorts by the 139 black employees of the mining company on the Navassa Island in 1889 resulted in the deaths of four of the dozen white supervisors of the mining company. U.S. authorities quickly arrived and brought them all to Baltimore to face charges. Fifty-four of the employees were charged with crimes and the rest were held as witnesses. The series of trials lasted for months and eventually fourteen were sentenced to prison and three condemned to the gallows. However, President Benjamin Harrison, led an investigation of his own, and eventually commuted the death sentences of three of the four workers.
Another saga of one family’s fight to gain ownership of the island can be found on various Internet sites and is detailed in the book, “Liberating Navassa.”
By 1996 the United States Coast Guard decided they no longer needed the lighthouse and its lens was removed and the tower went dark.
Since 1999 the island has been under the control of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as a wildlife refuge and is off limits to the public except by special permission.
There are no plans either short term or long term to restore the lighthouse, let alone maintain it as a historical monument. Instead, it will likely continue to deteriorate until the day that it crumbles to the ground and the Navassa Lighthouse will be no more.
This story appeared in the
March 2008 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
All contents copyright © 1995-2024 by Lighthouse Digest®, Inc. No story, photograph, or any other item on this website may be reprinted or reproduced without the express permission of Lighthouse Digest. For contact information, click here.
| 