Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse

After the Matagorda Island Lighthouse began guiding traffic into Matagorda Bay in 1852, requests were made for additional lights to mark channels and obstacles in the bay itself. Complying with the demands, the Lighthouse Board successfully petitioned Congress in 1854 for funds to construct a light on southern tip of Halfmoon Reef, a shoal on the eastern side of Matagorda Bay. Two years passed before the plans, which called for the construction of a screwpile lighthouse, were finalized. The lighthouse would consist of a wooden, hexagonal structure, sixteen feet on a side, surmounted by a lantern room and supported by seven, twenty-five foot iron piles. On one end, the piles had threads two feet in diameter, which facilitated screwing the piles into the shoal to a depth of nine feet.

The piles arrived at Matagorda Bay early in 1858, having been shipped to Galveston from Baltimore aboard the same vessel that carried the cast iron extensions for the Matagorda and Bolivar Point Lighthouses. The Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse was completed by July 1, when it began operation. A fixed, white light produced by a sixth-order Fresnel lens shown from the lantern room. However, mariners claimed that as they sailed in the gulf along the Matagorda Peninsula dunes would periodically obscure the Halfmoon Reef light, creating a flashing signature like that of the nearby Matagorda Island Lighthouse. To eliminate the confusion, a ruby red glass chimney was used in the oil lamp, changing the characteristic of the Halfmoon Reef light to red.

The station’s light was extinguished during the Civil War, but unlike other Texas lighthouses, the Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse was not dismantled or damaged during the conflict. Although the war ended in 1865, the lighthouse did not return to service until February 20th of 1868. The reestablishment of coastal lights and those marking major ports took precedence over bay lights.

Visitors at Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse

Surrounded by water, the lighthouse was an isolated island for its keepers. Perhaps that was why twice the lighthouse had the unique distinction of having a keeper and an assistant who were husband and wife. A few children were raised at the lighthouse, but the fear of having a child unknowingly fall into the water, prompted several wives to keep a residence on land. One keeper, Stephen Hill, had a daughter named Sadie who was prone to sleepwalking. After Sadie had been discovered taking a nighttime stroll dangerously near the edge of the lighthouse, her parents decided that something had to be done. Their solution was to tie a string between Sadie’s big toe and her sister’s big toe each night before retiring. The string brought an end to Sadie’s nocturnal adventures, though probably at the expense of several sound nights of sleep for her sister.

The Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse suffered little damaged in the 1875 hurricane that devastated Indianola and destroyed the East Shoal and West Shoal screwpile lighthouses at the entrance to Pass Cavallo, killing all four of their keepers. The hurricane of 1886 caused moderate damage to the lighthouse, and as traffic in Matagorda Bay had declined, the Lighthouse Board decided to discontinue the light, rather than making the necessary repairs. Fortunately, the lighthouse was retained as a daymark, for when vessel traffic to and from Port Lavaca experienced an increase around the turn of the century, the light was returned to service in 1902. This time a fixed, fourth-order red light was used, but the lens was replaced by a more modest lens lantern just a few years later.

In 1911, a schooner arrived at the lighthouse loaded with construction materials. Over the next several days, a work crew lived aboard the schooner while they added a roof with a steeper pitch to the lighthouse. This modification, carried out to address persistent leaks reported at the station, can be noted by comparing the top two historical pictures at right. In 1935, the position of assistant keeper was eliminated and not longer thereafter an eight-day lantern was installed in the lighthouse, permitting the remaining keeper, Mike Nelson, to live ashore. Besides calling at the lighthouse once a week or so, the keeper was given the additional responsibility for several other lighted beacons on the bay.

Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse on land

Given its exposed location, the lighthouse managed to weather several violent storms remarkably well. However, in 1942, its luck changed, when a hurricane tore the walkway from the lighthouse and left it sagging on its pilings. The Coast Guard decided to sell the structure rather than repair it. Bill Bauer and Henry Smith purchased the lighthouse, which they planned to use as quarters for the nightwatchman at their Point Comfort dredging business. Bill Bauer frequently visited the lighthouse as a boy with his father, who would transport shellfish harvested by local fishermen from the station to shore.

Aboard a 124-foot barge with a lifting crane and 34-foot steel beams, Henry Smith and a work crew set out to retrieve the lighthouse. As they were preparing the lighthouse for the move, military personnel arrived in a motorboat and ordered them to leave the area before the planned bombing practice set to begin in a half hour. The movers, however, were not willing to leave the lighthouse, and the bombing had to be delayed while the structure was salvaged.

In the early 1960s, Pat Riojas II was a truck driver for Bauer Dredging, and he and his family actually lived in the lighthouse, located just inside the Bauer fence line.

In 1978, thirty-six years after purchasing the lighthouse, Bauer donated it to the Calhoun County Historical Commission for use as a museum and supplied a sizable trust fund for maintaining the structure. The lighthouse was transported across the Matagorda Causeway, and then restored the following year as an Eagle Scout service project. In 1985, the lighthouse was placed atop its present piers, the encompassing porch was added, three flag poles were erected, and a Texas Historical Marker was unveiled at the site by Mr. and Mrs. Bauer, the generous donors of the lighthouse and the namesakes of the nearby community center. Today, the lighthouse sits alongside Highway 35, adjacent to Port Lavaca's Bauer Community Center.

References

1. Lighthouses of Texas, T. Lindsay Baker, 2001.
2. Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico, David Cipra, 1997.
3. Aunt Sadie's Sleep Walking Adventures, told to Robin Anderson by Grace Reeves.
4. "Historically Speaking," George F. Rhodes, Port Lavaca Wave, October 9, 1987.