Lighthouse Station 1859

The 1859 Cape Lookout Lighthouse was constructed under the supervision of (and probably designed by) William Henry Chase Whiting (1824-1865), Corps of Engineers, United States Army.

An original drawing of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse are noted "Drawn under the direction of Lieut. Wm. H. C. Whiting, Corps Engr." This drawing is undated, but we know that Whiting was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain in late 1858 and, thus, this drawing had to have been prepared prior to the lighthouse's completion and was probably part of the design drawings, even though "as-built" changes were made (apparently after 1873).

The tower design used for the 1859 Cape Lookout Lighthouse was also used for all the lighthouses constructed on the Outer Banks after that at Cape Hatteras, Bodie Island, and Currituck Beach. But, the Cape Lookout tower is only one of 15-20 similar conical towers over 150 feet high built by the Lighthouse Board between 1852 and 1890.

From 1812 to 1859, there was a sole lighthouse keeper who, with his family, occupied the keepers quarters. However, with the building of the new lighthouse, a first assistant keeper was assigned in September 1859 and a second assistant keeper in January 1860. With all three living in the small keepers quarters, there was no room for families…and even then the 800 square foot house was very cramped.

In 1873, the current keepers quarters was built to house the head (or "primary") keeper (called "the Captain) and his two assistants. However, this house was also too small to house three families, so the keepers' families could still not live with them. To eliminate this undesirable situation, a "primary keeper quarters" was constructed in 1907, next to the existing building, and the 1873 quarters was renovated into a duplex with an upstairs unit and a downstairs unit, one for each assistant and his family. Each house was provided with a summer kitchen, a fresh water cistern system, and, later, a partitioned "fuel shed" for storing wood and coal for heating and cooking. Until 1934, when "indoor plumbing" arrived and each house was fitted with toilets and a septic system, outdoor "privies" were used.

When the Coast Guard assumed responsibility for the lighthouse in 1939, the keepers were offered the option of resigning or accepting a commission in the Coast Guard. After the Coast Guard automated the light in 1950, fulltime keepers were no longer required and both keeper quarters buildings were declared "surplus".

Dr. Graham A. Barden Jr., son of the longtime New Bern congressman for whom Barden Inlet was named, was given a lot south of the lighthouse as a gift from his father’s law partner in 1957. He and two friends bought the 1907 keepers quarters for $666, according to Graham Barden III, and had it moved to their lot about a mile south of the lighthouse to serve as a family vacation cottage in 1958. The 1873 building was simply abandoned and ownership was transferred to the Cape Lookout National Seashore when it was established in 1976. The building was renovated to its current state in 1988-1990. Unfortunately, during Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the "fuel shed" was lost to storm surge.

The following are the basic statistics for the 1859 tower:

- 169 feet high from the ground to the top of the lightning rod above the ball ventilator, 163 feet to the top of the ball ventilator, 161 feet to the top of the roof.

- 150 feet to the focal plane of the light above (average) sea level.

- 156 feet above mean low water to the light.

- 28 feet 7 inches base diameter, 10 feet 6 inches inside diameter (resulting in an 8 feet 1 inch wall thickness at the base, tapering to 1 foot 7 inches wall thickness at the top of tower).

- 216 steps, consisting of 18 outside wood steps, 1 step into the entry, 180 cast iron spiral steps (5 landings, 36 steps between each landing), 8 "ship's ladder" steps to the Watch Room, and 9 "ship's" ladder steps to the Lantern Room. However, since the Lantern Room is off-limits to visitors, only 207 steps can be climbed by visitors.

Contrary to popular accounts, the exterior paint scheme on the Cape Lookout Lighthouse is no accident or mistake. The Lighthouse Board ordered the three North Carolina red brick lighthouses (Lookout, Hatteras, and Bodie Island) painted exactly the way they are on April 17, 1873: "Cape Hatteras tower will be painted in spiral bands, alternately black and white. Cape Lookout tower will be checkered, the checkers being painted alternately black and white. Body's [sic] Island tower is now painted black and white horizontal bands."

In 1821, Augustin Jean Fresnel (pronounced Fray-nell) introduced the lens that would change the world of lighthouses. This French army engineer made a lens shaped like a bullet. Directly over and under the central glass drum are curved dioptic prisms and then above those are curved "catadioptic" prisms that bent the light into a horizontal plane as shown in the figure below. Around the fixed lens' waist is a central drum of convex bullseye lenses.

The two types of prisms bend and reflect light rays. By positioning the prisms around the outside of the lens so that all emerging light rays are parallel to each other, the lens was capable of collecting up to 90% of the lamp's light and focusing it into a horizontal beam. Moving screens (also called eclipsers) could be placed in front of the optic, if desired, to create flashing light patterns. Rotating the Fresnel's vertical segments of prisms resulted in funneling the light into vertical or pencil beams.

When the current lighthouse was completed, the first order Fresnel lens and light were moved from the old lighthouse to new one and lighted on November 9.

At the beginning of the Civil War, the Confederate Lighthouse Service ordered that all lighthouse lenses, including the First Order lens at Cape Lookout, to be removed and taken to places further inland for safekeeping unit war's end. (Near the end of the War, Sherman's troops found several crated lens stored in the Capitol building in Raleigh.)

Federal troops began to capture the outer banks in 1862, completing that effort with the capture of Fort Macon in April of that year. In February of 1863, a Third Order lens was installed on a temporary basis at Cape Lookout while the First Order lens was sent to the Staten Island Lighthouse Depot for repair. This temporary light was lighted for the first time on March 1, 1863. (It was a fixed white light that covered an arch of approximately 288 degrees.) Finally, in 1868, the lighthouse was returned to full capacity with the reconditioned first order Fresnel lens.

Whale oil was used as the primary light fuel until 1885, when kerosene (called "mineral oil" at the time) was introduced. Between 1885 and 1907, both whale oil and kerosene were burned, but after 1907 only kerosene was used.

In 1912, the Cape Lookout light was significantly improved when it was fitted with an "incandescent oil vapor" (IOV) lamp. IOV lamps consumed half as much fuel as wick lamps and were nearly three times as bright, adding three or four miles of visibility, and the fuel burned cleanly in the new lamps, requiring less cleaning by the Keepers. Lower fuel consumption also meant fewer trips hand carrying kerosene up the stairways. This IOV lamp produced approximately 77,000 candlepower.

In 1914, the light was changed from a fixed light to flashing, with two 10-second eclipses each minute, i.e., the light was on for 20 seconds, then off for 10 seconds. This was accomplished by modifying the lens with a "falling weight" clockwork type mechanism (similar to that of a coo-coo clock).

In 1933, the lightship LV-72 was decommissioned. Its electric light, consisting of four 250W lamps, was salvaged and installed within the existing Fresnel lens, increasing light output to 160,000 candlepower. Electric power for the new light was provided by two 5 kW gasoline-powered generators. Sometime after 1939, power from the Coast Guard Station was run via overhead poles to serve the lighthouse.

In 1950, the light was fully automated by the Coast Guard with a "sun sensor" to turn the beacon on and off.

In 1972, the 1856 first order Fresnel lens and its 1933 electric light source were removed. In their place, the Coast Guard installed two 1000-watt airport beacons. Each self-contained beacon consists of quartz halogen lamps, reflector, and lens system. The twenty-four-inch diameter beacons each have two lamps, only one of which is active at a time. When the active lamp burns out, a drum rotates automatically and engages the electric contacts of the second lamp, effectively changing itself (though manual intervention is required when the second lamp finally burns out).

Finally, in 1982, an underwater electric cable was run to the lighthouse from Harkers Island and the pole line from the Coast Guard Station was removed (since the station was decommissioned that year). A new emergency generator was installed in the base of the tower to provide power if electrical service from Harkers Island is lost.

Today, the light is "on" continuously, but appears at a distance to flash once every fifteen seconds since the two beacons are mounted back-to-back on a "turntable" rotating at two revolutions per minute (rpm). Each lamp produces 800,000 candlepower and the beams are visible up to about 20 miles on a clear night.

The reconditioned 1856 first order Fresnel lens removed from the Cape Lookout Lighthouse in 1972 was placed on display at the Coast Guard Support Center in Portsmouth, Virginia until 1994. Then, the Coast Guard transferred the lens to the Block Island South East Lighthouse (in Rhode Island), where it remains in use today. However, neither the Cape Lookout National Seashore nor the Block Island South East Lighthouse Foundation is happy about this arrangement. Cape Lookout would like to have its lens returned, while Block Island wants to reinstall its unique 1929 green Fresnel lens that was removed in 1994. (Today, there are only 13 lighthouses in the U.S. that continue to use a first order Fresnel lens.)