When trade in the bay diminished due to the abandonment of the town of St. Joseph, permission was granted in 1847 to build a lighthouse at the cape’s elbow, on the condition that the St. Joseph Bay Lighthouse would be discontinued, dismantled, and used to build the new lighthouse. A site that was "deemed to be entirely secure from overflow or inundation" was selected for the construction of an 85-foot tower. Edward Bowden from nearby Franklin County was awarded the contract for the tower, while the revolving lighting apparatus was supplied by Winslow Lewis. Completed in April of 1848, the Cape San Blas Lighthouse collapsed during a gale on August 23-24 of 1851. The same storm also destroyed neighboring lighthouses at Cape St. George and Dog Island.

A year after the loss of the first lighthouse, Congress appropriated $12,000 for a second brick tower for the cape. Due to an outbreak of yellow fever and delays in obtaining the lantern and Fresnel lens, the tower was not lit until November of 1855, when Keeper Joseph Ridlin was transferred from Dog Island. Ten months later, on August 30, 1856, another hurricane struck Cape San Blas. A Lighthouse Board report described the destruction inflicted on the station. "The sea rose so high that the waves struck the floor of the keeper’s dwelling, elevated 8 feet above the ground, and about 14 feet above the ordinary tides. A lagoon now occupies the site of the lighthouse."

Third Cape San Blas Lighthouse Photograph courtesy State Archives of Florida

On March 3, 1857, Congress allocated $20,000 for a third brick tower, which was first lit on May 1, 1858. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, the Confederate lighthouse superintendent had the lens removed from the Cape San Blas Lighthouse before Union forces could claim it. During the war, the keeper’s dwelling and the wooden portions of the tower were burned. The lighthouse returned to operation on July 23, 1865, after repairs had been made and a new lens was supplied.

By 1869, the beach in front of the lighthouse had mostly disappeared , and the gulf was starting to threaten the tower. The Lighthouse Board requested $5,000 to build a jetty to stabilize the beach, but a sum of only $2,000 was granted. That amount was deemed insufficient for any kind of protective measure, and no action was taken. The report of the Lighthouse Board in 1881 details the dire condition of the tower. "The sea has been encroaching on this tower until its base is in the water. Brush mattresses were made, pinned down to the sand with small iron screw piles, covered with sand and occasionally blocks of concrete, to further check such encroachment, but the almost constant surf, beating against the mattresses, tore them to pieces. An appropriation for a new tower, further inland is badly needed. It is recommended that a skeleton iron tower be erected; then if the sea again encroaches, it could be taken down and reerected." The brick lighthouse lost the battle with the sea on July 3, 1882, when the surf undermined the foundation of the tower and toppled it into the waves.

In 1883, $35,000 was granted to build an iron skeleton tower as requested by the Lighthouse Board. The tower was fabricated in the North, and then loaded on a ship for its journey to the cape. En route, the ship went down along Florida’s west coast. Fortunately, the wreck was in shallow water, and most of the material was salvageable. Before the tower’s third-order Fresnel lens was first lit in June of 1885, a temporary light had been displayed from the top of a tall pole.

The new skeleton lighthouse had four iron legs that ran the length of the tower and were tied together with a network of braces. The central column, which housed the spiral staircase, was different from most used at other lighthouses as it did not extend all the way from the lantern room to the ground. Instead, it stopped twenty feet from the ground, and an external metal stairway was used to access the door to the tower. This arrangement would hopefully keep the entrance to the tower above any waters that might encroach on the station. The bottom portion of the tower was also supported by four additional legs that extended midway up the tower.

The 98-foot tower was originally placed 1,500 feet from the shoreline, but by 1890 only 144 feet of sand separated the tower from the breaking waves. The tower obviously had to be moved or it too would be lost. Congress provided $20,000 for the task. Originally, the new site was going to be a point on the inside of the cape, about 1.5 miles from were the tower stood. However, obtaining title to the property proved difficult, and on October 8-9 of 1894, a powerful gale damaged the iron tower and left it standing in water.

The decision was then reached to move the tower to Black’s Island, located a few miles north of the cape in St. Joseph Bay. Work on preparing the island and dismantling the lighthouse started in early 1896, but after a couple of weeks of work, funds ran out. Before work recommenced, the Lighthouse Board again changed its mind, and decided the lighthouse should just be moved further north on the cape. Before any action was taken, the beach started to build up around the iron tower, and it was decided to just leave the light where it was.

The tower was safe until a hurricane struck in 1916 and stripped away the beach protecting the lighthouse. Plans were again made to move the tower farther inland, and in 1918 the tower was moved a quarter of a mile from the shore. The light was first shown from its new location on January 22, 1919.

Life on the cape was obviously difficult for a lighthouse, and it wasn’t much easier for the keepers and their families. The station was quite isolated, with a trip to the nearest settlement requiring a one-way trek of twenty-three miles. Keeper Ray Linton found "the lonely vigil and wide expanse of the Gulf too great a burden," and in 1832, he took his own life. Six years later another keeper lost his life prematurely. Keeper Marler, a 38-year-old father of four children, was attacked and stabbed in a workshop at the station. His six-year-old daughter discovered her father’s body, when she went to call him for the noon meal. The identity of the perpetrator was never discovered.

In 1952, a LORAN radio station was installed near the Cape San Blas Lighthouse. Later that decade, the Air Force established Test Site D-3 on the majority of the rest of the cape to provide radar tracking capabilities for over-water test and training missions. Steve Barnold spent a year at Cape San Blas as an ET2 (Electronics Techinician Second Class) starting in October of 1977. Barnold was responsible for maintaining and repairing the LORAN transmitter and protecting the station from pesky civilians. In 1981, after the LORAN station was deactivated and the lighthouse was automated by the Coast Guard, the Air Force received a five-year permit to use and maintain the lighthouse property. When the permit expired, negotiations were entered into for an extended 25-year agreement. Apparently there was some question over who would care for the keeper's dwellings, and they were excluded from the agreement.

The dwellings were left unattended for several years, and they began to deteriorate. In 1996 the lighthouse was deactivated, and two years later, the dwelling that was closest to the shore received considerable damage from Hurricane Earl. In 1999, after the Air Force finally assumed responsibility for the keeper's dwellings, the two structures were moved from their position on the shore to a site next to the tower. The dwelling that was in the best condition was restored at that time, while the second dwelling had to wait until 2005 for its turn.

The restored keeper’s dwellings are evidence of what an attractive piece of history the lighthouse and dwellings could be if proper care were afforded them. While sensitivity to the Air Force’s needs should be shown, it would be great if a cooperative arrangement for the restoration and interpretation of the site could be worked out.

References

1. "Cape San Blas Media Release," Air Armament Center Office of Public Affairs, June 1999.
2. U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office website.
3. Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico, David Cipra, 1997.