The Lighthouse Board had long envisioned an unbroken string of lights along the Florida Keys, but Congress had denied funding for this missing lighthouse in the lower Keys multiple times. As early as 1855, the board requested resources for a lighthouse, explaining that strong currents in the area tended to push ships towards the reefs. This fact was clearly evidenced by the sinking of the HMS Loo.

Launched around 1706, the Loo patrolled the Carolina coast for the British Navy, fending off Spanish privateers. On one long-range mission, the Loo recaptured the Billander Betty off the coast of Cuba. Together, the two ships set sail for South Carolina, but at 1:15 a.m. on the morning of the second day of their trip north, the vessels found themselves in shallow water and breaking waves. Efforts to escape the shoals failed, and both ships were soon hard aground on the reefs. The captain of the Loo faced court-martial for the wreck, but was acquitted of any wrongdoing when it was determined that the course he steered should have kept the vessel safe from the reefs if not for an unusual contrary current.

American Shoal Lighthouse Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

The incident must have been hard for the captain to forget, and it will likely not be forgotten for quite some time as the area now bears the name of the ill-fated vessel, although with a slightly altered spelling – Looe Key.

In 1850, a thirty-eight-foot pole topped with a white barrel was driven into Looe Key to keep vessels clear of the reefs. Two years later, a white screwpile, rising to a height of thirty-six feet, was placed on American Shoal, a few miles southwest of Looe Key. These markers were quite beneficial in daylight hours, but offered no assistance to a vessel transiting the area at night.

After repeated appeals to Congress, $75,000 for a lighthouse on American Shoal was finally appropriated on June 20, 1878. Rather than design a new tower, the board opted to reuse the architectural plans from the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse with only minor changes. Phoenix Iron Company of Trenton, New Jersey was paid $47,000 to fabricate the tower, which was shipped to Florida in late 1879.

With four acres of American Shoal relinquished to the Federal Government by the governor of Florida, everything was set for assembling the tower. To create a work platform at the site, piles of mangrove wood tipped with iron were driven into the coral reef and then topped by wooden decking. Nine iron piles, one central pile surrounded by eight arranged in an octagon, were sunk ten feet into the reef to create the lighthouse’s foundation. Inside additional piles, which sloped upward from the foundation to the lantern room, a two-story, eight-sided dwelling was constructed. The tower was different from the one at Fowey Rocks in three ways:

1. The dwelling was painted brown rather than white.
2. The cap on the lantern room at American Shoal was the typical Chinaman’s Hat style, rather than the graceful bell-shaped cap used at Fowey Rocks.
3. The vertical metal bars or mullions, which separated the panes of glass in the lantern room, were aligned across the three horizontal tiers of panes at Fowey Rocks, while at American Shoal, the mullions in the center band of glass planes were offset from the levels above and below.

The first-order Fresnel lens used in the American Shoal Lighthouse consisted of twenty-four vertical bulls-eyes sections and was manufactured in 1874 by Henry Lepaute of Paris. Resting on thirty-nine 1.5 inch ball bearings, the lens rotated once every two minutes to produce a flash every five seconds. As headkeeper, William Bates, after arriving at the new tower from the Sombrero Key Lighthouse, performed the inaugural lighting on July 15, 1880.

Each member of the first crew assigned to the American Shoal Lighthouse was transferred from another offshore tower. Perhaps this was a prudent measure since not everyone was cut out for this isolated life. As pointed out by Coast Guardsman and lighthouse historian David Cipra, “Few people even remotely realize what isolation means to the men living under restricted conditions, such as prevailed on these lighthouse stations. Unless adequate measures are taken to neutralize the ill effects it has on the men, rancor, hostility, and even enmity of the most serious nature may result.” Bates’ assistant keepers were Dudley Richardson and Henry Johnson, who respectively had been transferred from the Alligator Reef and Sombrero Key Lighthouses.

The American Shoal Lighthouse received several enhancements over the years. Its light source was upgraded to an incandescent oil vapor system in 1912, eliminating the need to keep a wick meticulously trimmed. Red glass panes were added to the lantern room to indicate the sectors where dangerous reefs were located. In 1931, a generous woman in Key West gave radio sets to the keepers at the American Shoal, Sombrero Key, Alligator Reef, and Carysfort Reef lighthouse as a Christmas present. Armed with these wireless wonders, the keepers could stay apprised of the latest news and weather reports, and even catch broadcasts of church services on Sundays.

George Maroney was stationed on the American Shoal Lighthouse for almost two years starting in April of 1955. At that time, there were four coastguardsmen assigned to the station, with three on duty each week and the fourth on compensatory leave. As the four-legged platform adjacent to the lighthouse was not yet in place, access to the station was via a walkway off the now-missing lower deck from which a Jacob’s ladder was suspended. The station’s 23-foot motorboat hung from davits on the tower's second level and had to be cranked up by hand. Maroney recalls that the lighthouse was not the most comfortable place to live, as the only source of heat was the oven in the kitchen and the station's outhouse was cantilevered over the water from the lower deck. The only TV they could pick up was from Cuba, which made the programs a bit difficult to understand.

As technology continued to evolve, the keepers and Fresnel lens were soon replaced with an automated beacon, and Coast Guard personnel were removed from the American Shoal Lighthouse in 1963. The lighthouse has remained vacant ever since, except for a five-month span (July through November) during the Mariel refugee crisis in 1980.

During the first part of that year, several groups of Cubans forced their way onto the grounds of the Venezuelan and Peruvian Embassies seeking asylum. In April, the Cuban government announced that anyone wishing to leave the country should go to the Peruvian Embassy. In response, a crowd of over 10,000 flooded into the compound, forcing latecomers to find a spot atop the embassy or a perch in a tree. A few weeks later, Castro surprisingly opened the doors of freedom to anyone wishing to leave the country from the port of Mariel.

Over the next several months, more than 100,000 Cubans would make the 90-mile trip across open waters to Florida. Anxious relatives in the U.S. formed a freedom flotilla to retrieve family members. Many vessels making the trip were not well-suited for the lengthy voyage, and the U.S. Coast Guard was kept busy responding to distress calls.

It was during this exodus, that the American Shoal, Sombrero Reef, and Alligator Reef lighthouses were remanned by the Coast Guard as lookout towers. The American Shoal lighthouse had deteriorated significantly since it was automated, and surprisingly a lot of the damage was by termites, who had been whittling away on the dwelling’s wooden interior. Quick repairs were effectuated, and a crew assigned to the lighthouse. A member of the team was always on watch and in regular radio communication with the other towers.

In 1981, Looe Key, with its live coral and teaming sea life, was designated a marine sanctuary. The American Shoal Lighthouse is still active today, helping keep the reef safe from the iron hulls of passing vessels.

References

1. Lighthouses of the Florida Keys, Love Dean, 1998.

To get a close-up view of the tower, a boat or plane ride is necessary. We flew over the lighthouse with Fantasy Dan's Airplane Rides, located at the Sugarloaf Airport near MM 17. Fantasy Dan's can be reached at (305) 745-2217.