Sand Island is located roughly three miles offshore from the primary Mobile Bay entrance, which is bounded on the east by Mobile Point and on the west by Dauphin Island. On May 23, 1828, Congress empowered the Secretary of the Treasury to place an “iron spindle” lighthouse on the outer bar of Mobile Bay. The tower, visible from a distance of six miles, was completed in 1830.

Mariners soon complained about the inadequacy of the lighthouse, and on March 3, 1837 Congress responded with an allotment of $10,000 for an improved lighthouse on Sand Island. The lighthouse, built by Winslow Lewis, rose to a height of fifty-five feet and was fitted with fourteen lamps backed by sixteen-inch reflectors. Lewis completed the project under budget, returning $1,101 to the government. John McCloud served as the first keeper of the lighthouse, which was outshone by the more powerful Mobile Point Lighthouse and was thus considered a second-class beacon.

Sand Island Lighthouse circa 1859 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

A coast survey in 1848 reported “Sand Island has lost a strip the whole length of the eastern shore from 66 to 100 yards in width”. Year after the year, the eastern end of the island was slowing being whittled away. By the early 1850s, it was apparent that a new lighthouse was needed for the island, and this time a first-class tower was built. Under the direction of Army Engineer Danville Leadbetter, a conical brick tower with a height of nearly 200 feet was constructed on the island in 1858. The lighthouse was the tallest to ever be built on the Gulf Coast and displayed a first-order Fresnel lens.

Sadly, this magnificent tower had a short life. The Civil War broke out when the lighthouse had been in use for just over two years. The Confederates removed the nine-foot-tall lens and placed it in storage before Union forces gained control of the island. On December 20, 1862, Union blockaders installed a fourth-order lens in the tower, which also served as a lookout for spying on the Confederates. Irritated by the proximity of the enemy, a band of Confederates led by John W. Glenn rowed from Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island out to Sand Island. Before being challenged by the guns of the USS Pembina, the intruders had torched several frame buildings near the lighthouse. Glenn swore that he would return to the island, and “tumble the Light House down in their teeth”. On the morning of February 23, 1863, roughly a month after his previous visit to the island, Glenn made good on his promise. After placing seventy pounds of gun powder under the tower, he lit a fuse and retreated amidst a downpour of bricks. Glenn’s report on the tower’s destruction was addressed to none other than Danville Leadbetter, the builder of the tower, who was now Brigadier General in the Confederate Army.

Following the destruction of the lighthouse, a temporary wooden tower was built, which displayed a fourth-order lens from a height of forty-eight feet. A request for a permanent structure was made after the war, but it would be nine years before a new brick tower was built. The tower was constructed using a popular plan of the 1870s that was also used for the Carolina lighthouses at Bodie Island, Currituck, and Charleston. The classical brick tower was built on a foundation of 171 pilings overlaid with twelve feet of cement. The lighthouse rose to a height of 132 feet and was constructed 670 feet northwest of the previous site. The new light was activated on September 1, 1873, and shortly thereafter, a substantial two-story keepers' house was added.

Sand Island Lighthouse in 1962 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Erosion continued unabated along the eastern shore of the island. By 1880, the foundation of the 1858 tower was awash. Jetties were extended from the island by the Lighthouse Board in an attempt to retard the erosion, but by 1888, only 10 feet of sand separated the lighthouse from the Gulf. Rather than abandon the majestic lighthouse, 1,600 tons of granite were placed around the tower in 1889. A decade later, 6,548 more tons were added. The lighthouse clung tenaciously to the eastern end of the island. Before the keepers' dwelling was lost to erosion, it was torn down in 1901 and replaced with a six-room dwelling. Then in 1906, a powerful hurricane struck the station. A lighthouse inspector sent the following terse telegram describing the damage: "Sand Island light out. Island washed away. Dwelling gone. Keepers not to be found.” Subsequent keepers were forced to live in the base of the tower until a new dwelling was built. Unfortunately for them, this did not happen until 1925, when a 25 x 30 foot dwelling was built atop twelve cast-iron piles that were secured in a concrete base adjacent to the lighthouse.

By 1908, the tower stood on a man-made mountain of rip-rap, separated from the retreating island by a quarter of a mile. During the early 1900s, several more tons of rip-rap were placed around the lighthouse. On January 17, 1919, reports were made that the Sand Island Lighthouse had not been lit the previous night. An investigation team was dispatched to the island, where they read in the station's log book that the two keepers had gone ashore to pick up a second assistant keeper. It was concluded that the keepers must have been swamped in breakers or blown out to sea, as they never reached shore. In 1921, the lighthouse was automated, and the light was deactivated eleven years later. Since that time, the pile of granite blocks has managed to provide a secure footing for the lighthouse without further aid from man. The second-order Fresnel lens was removed from the tower in 1971, and then placed on exhibit at the Fort Morgan museum the following year. In 1973, the 1925 keeper’s dwelling, which stood on iron pilings next to the tower, burned down.

Before restoration work could begin on the lighthouse, it had to be transferred from the federal government. In 2001, the Alabama Historical Commission rejected an offer of the lighthouse, reasoning that it would cost too much to save. Fortunately, Dauphin Island stepped forward and obtained ownership of the lighthouse from the federal government in 2003. In 2006, a safety trip was made to the lighthouse to devise a safe manner for landing at the lighthouse and for climbing the tower in preparation for a planned engineering study of the lighthouse. Moving the lighthouse to nearby Dauphin Island was explored, but instead tiny Sand Island will be replenished and the tower restored in situ. Based on an engineering study conducted in 2007 and using FEMA hurricane recovery funds in excess of one million dollars, boulders around the lighthouse were rearranged and tied together with stainless steel cables, a ring of reinforced cement was poured around the base of the lighthouse, and missing bricks and mortar were added to the tower during the summer of 2008. This stabilization work should keep the lighthouse standing until a long-term restoration plan can be executed.

The plight of the Sand Island Lighthouse is similar to its sister light, the Morris Island Lighthouse, near Charleston, South Carolina. Both lighthouses were built on sandy islands that have since eroded away leaving the towers surrounded by water. Save The Light, Inc. is making great strides in promoting the preservation of the Morris Island Lighthouse, and hopefully the Alabama Lighthouse Foundation will be able to match their success.

References

1. Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico, Cipra, 1997.
2. Sand Island Lighthouse Chronicles, Lee, 1998.