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Ship Shoal, LA |
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Description:
Isle Dernier, French for Last Island, was so named because it was the westernmost of a string of barrier islands that stretched west over ninety miles from the mouth of the Mississippi. In 1848, the Louisiana Legislature petitioned Congress for a lighthouse to mark the island. Money was soon granted, not for a lighthouse, but rather for a lightship to be stationed several miles southeast of Last Island on Ship Shoal.
On December 29, 1849, the lightship, christened Pleasonton, after the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, Stephen Pleasonton, took up station on the shoal. The ship cost $12,774.67, and exhibited two red lanterns from its masts. In 1852, Stephen Pleasonton’s thirty years of overseeing U.S. Lighthouses came to an end, as a new Lighthouse Board was established. The service of the Pleasonton would soon come to an end too, as the board decided to construct a permanent lighthouse on Ship Shoal. The lighthouse would be an iron skeletal tower, modeled after those successfully established on the reefs surrounding the Florida Keys. It would be several years before the necessary funds could be raised for the lighthouse, and in the interim, disaster struck Last Island.
In January of 1858 the iron Ship Shoal Lighthouse was assembled in Philadelphia and then taken apart and shipped to Louisiana, to be erected on Ship Shoal. Eight vertical, 30-foot screwpiles were embedded fifteen feet into the shoal. Atop the piles, the sloping tower rose to a height of 125 feet. At the base of the tower was a two story, cylindrical dwelling for the keepers, and crowning the tower was a second-order Fresnel lens, making one revolution every thirty seconds. Like many of the Gulf Coast lighthouses, the Ship Shoal Lighthouse was caught in the north-south struggle of the Civil War. Around the start of the war, Confederates removed the lens and rotating apparatus from the tower and took them to Berwick for storage. Union forces later captured the tower and returned it to service on November 1, 1864 using a new Fresnel lens. The original lens was recovered in 1865. Though Last Island was considered a healthy retreat; such was not true for the Ship Shoal Lighthouse. By 1866, several keepers at the light had become sick and even paralyzed. The source of their problems was soon discovered to be the red lead paint used on the tower. The rain, which fell on the tower and was stored in the tower’s cistern for drinking water, was being contaminated by the red paint. After the discovery, the red paint was quickly removed, and the tower was given a coating of coal tar to prevent rust. Over the years, storms have sculpted the sandy shoal beneath the lighthouse, jeopardizing the tower’s foundation. Cement, rip rap and granite blocks have all been placed around the foundation to retard erosion. When the station was automated in 1929, the tower had developed a noticeable lean. However, the foundation must be fairly secure as it has weathered numerous storms since. The Ship Shoal Lighthouse was discontinued and abandoned in 1965. Time has taken its toll on both the lighthouse and the remnants of Last Island. However, the future is starting to look a bit brighter. The Town of Berwick has publicized plans to bring the tower ashore to join the relocated Southwest Reef Lighthouse in a park along the banks of the Atchafalaya River. This move would make the tower more accessible to visitors, and also facilitate much needed repair work. In 1998, restoration work was started on the remaining pieces of Last Island. Yards of sand were suctioned up and used to elevate the islands. New plantings should help the islands endure the forces of nature. Hopefully, both of these restoration efforts will prove successful.
Location: Located in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, thirty-four miles southwest of Cocodrie. Latitude: 28.914536 Longitude: -91.071133 For a larger map of Ship Shoal Lighthouse, click the lighthouse in the above map or get a map from: Mapquest. Travel Instructions: The Ship Shoal Lighthouse is a long way from anywhere, and is best seen by boat or plane. Captain Bill Lake fishes near the lighthouse in the summer, and has some information on the lighthouse at his website. The lighthouse is owned by the Coast Guard. Tower closed. Find the closest hotels to Ship Shoal Lighthouse Notes from a friend: Kraig writes:We chartered a plane to fly us out to the lighthouse. Before taking off, I had entered the coordinates for the lighthouse into a GPS receiver. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that the map coordinates were in minutes and seconds, not the decimal format I typically use. The pilot had not seen the lighthouse before, so we just had to rely on instinct and our position relative to Raccoon Point to find the structure. Just as the thought that we might not get to see the lighthouse started to develop, the pilot spotted something on the horizon. It's a good thing he was blessed with keen eyesight, as I sure didn't see it at first it. Only the upper portion of the dwelling remains at the lighthouse. It seems the bottom portion vanished sometime during the late 1990s. See our List of Lighthouses in Louisiana |
