Bodie Island Lighthouse

Bodie Island Lighthouse. . , The waters beyond this shore conceal a deadly secret: dozens of shifting sandbars that can imperil passing ships and wreak havoc on coastal commerce. Recognizing the problem in 1790, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton began lobbying for the construction of lighthouses to aid mariners navigating the "Graveyard of the Atlantic.", Standing before you is the third lighthouse built in this area. The first lighthouse - built in 1848, stood 57 feet tall on an unstable foundation, which became unsafe and was razed. In 1861, the 90-foot tall second lighthouse - built just two years earlier- was destroyed by Confederate troops during the Civil War. Work crews moved from the recently completed 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse to begin constructing a new lighthouse for Bodie Island. On October 1, 1872, the third and current Bodie Island Light was illuminated for the first time., This brick lighthouse stands 167.6 feet tall. The lantern room near the top holds a first-order Fresnel lens, first electrified in 1932. With lighthouses spaced approximately 40 miles apart along the coast, past and present seafarers have near continuous views of these life-saving beacons as they navigate offshore waters., Thank you to the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society for their support of this informational sign and for projects since 1994 to restore and preserve the Bodie Island Lighthouse and its history., (captions) , Bodie Island Light Station, June 9, 1893. Photo by Herbert Bamber, Bodie Island Lighthouse is identified by the paint design or the repeating flash pattern of 2.5 seconds on, 2.5 seconds off, 2.5 seconds on, and 22.5 seconds off., The first-order Fresnel lens is over 7 feet tall, comprised of hundreds of prisms that bend the light into a narrow focused beam that can be seen up to 20 miles away.