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Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse
Jupiter, Florida

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General Information

Date Established: 1860
Date Present Tower Built: 1860
Date Automated: 1987
Height of Tower: 105 ft.
Height of Focal Plane: 146 ft.

Location

Distance from You:
Open to Public?: Yes, admission charged

Photos

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Description

Brick conical tower erected in 1860. The lighthouse is sited atop of a 46 feet high hill, which is something of an anomoly in that region. During renovations conducted during 1999-2000, archeologists discovered that the hill was probably a Native American midden, dating from about 700 AD.

Although appropriations had begun in 1853 to establish a light at Jupiter Inlet, Seminole Indian attacks, the inlet silting over and closing, along with the oppresive heat, humidity and insects prevented the light from being completed until 1860. Darkened in 1861 by southern sympathisizers during the US Civil War, the light was relit in 1866 after the missing lamp parts were recovered.

In 1928, the light was converted to electricity from the old oil lamp. A hurricane later that year knocked out the electricity and the back up diesel generator would not start, so the head keeper Captain Seabrook, even though he had an infected hand, reinstalled the old oil lamps. However, the weight mechanism to turn the light could not be reinstalled, so Captain Seabrook's son, Franklin, turned the lamp by hand. During the night, windows in the lantern room broke, and one of the bulls-eyes in the Fresnel lens was broken. Captain Seabrook had the lens sent to Charleston, South Carolina for repairs, where it was reassembled and kept together with iron bars. You can see the repaired bulls-eye when you climb the 105 steps to the top.

Major renovations in 1999 returned the lighthouse to its natural brick color compared to the firehouse red it had been painted for many years.

In addition to the lighthouse, the old oil room next to the lighthouse has been converted into a small museum.

Directions:

Travel north on US 1 from Jupiter, over the Loxahatchee River bridge. Turn right (east) on Beach Road, then the first right is Captain Armours Way, which leads to Jupiter Lighthouse Park.

Tours are conducted by the Loxahatchee River Historical Society. Tours are conducted Saturday through Wednesday, 10:00AM to 4:00PM, with the last tour leaving at 3:15PM. The lighthouse is closed on Thursday and Friday, and New Year's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sunset tours are also available the last Wednesday of the month, but you must make reservations for these tours and there is an additional fee.

Admission:

Lighthouse tours are $6.00, weather permitting.

NOTE: The lighthouse is situated on an active United States Coast Guard facility (military family housing for Coast Guard Station Lake Worth Inlet) so entrance is only allowed with guides from the Loxahatchee River Historical Society.

If you choose not to tour but just view the lighthouse, there are a couple of parks on the south side of the Loxahatchee River that provide good views.

Submitted by: oceanview

Date posted: Sat Sep 9, 2006

Views: 733